Re: [GSoC 2026] Introduction and Project Interest: Support generating filesystems from manifests

[Gao Xiang <hsiangkao@linux.alibaba.com>]

Hi Sri,

On 2026/3/13 16:52, Sri Lasya Prathipati wrote:
> Subject: [GSoC 2026] Introduction and Project Interest: Support
> generating filesystems from manifests
> 
> Body:
> 
> Hello EROFS Community,
> 
> My name is Lasya, and I am a 3rd-year Computer Science Engineering
> student. I am writing to express my strong interest in the GSoC 2026
> project: "Support generating filesystems from manifests."
> 
> I have spent the last few days familiarizing myself with the project's
> goals and the erofs-utils codebase. I wanted to share my progress to
> demonstrate my commitment to this task:
> 
> Development Environment: I have successfully configured a WSL2
> (Ubuntu) environment and verified that I can compile the project from
> source using autogen.sh and make. The local mkfs.erofs binary is
> functional on my system.
> 
> Code Analysis: I have begun a deep dive into lib/tar.c. I am
> specifically studying the tarerofs_parse_tar() function (line 700) to
> understand how it iterates through the tar_header and maps metadata to
> the erofs_inode structure. I see this as the primary template for the
> manifest parser I intend to build.
> 
> Initial Research: I am currently comparing the "unix proto" and "BSD
> mtree" formats. My goal is to design a manifest parser that is robust
> enough to handle various metadata types (UIDs, GIDs, and permissions)
> while remaining consistent with the existing importer logic in
> erofs-utils.
> 
> I am highly motivated to contribute to EROFS and would welcome any
> early feedback on whether there are specific manifest formats the
> community prioritizes, or any architectural nuances I should keep in
> mind while drafting my formal proposal.
> 
> Thank you for your time and for this opportunity.

Thanks for your interest. You could look into the erofs-utils
codebase and write the proposal first.

Thanks,
Gao Xiang

> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Lasya