From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
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Subject: Re: The argument for fs assistance in handling archives
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 16:01:17 +0200
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Cc: David Masover <ninja@slaphack.com>, viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk,
	Frank van Maarseveen <frankvm@xs4all.nl>, Dave Kleikamp <shaggy@austin.ibm.com>,
	Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>, Jamie Lokier <jamie@shareable.org>,
	Horst von Brand <vonbrand@inf.utfsm.cl>, Adrian Bunk <bunk@fs.tum.de>, Hans Reiser <reiser@namesys.com>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>, fsdevel <linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org>, Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	Alexander Lyamin aka FLX <flx@namesys.com>, ReiserFS List <reiserfs-list@namesys.com>
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To: "John Stoffel" <stoffel@lucent.com>
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>>>>>> "David" == David Masover <ninja@slaphack.com> writes:

David>> File-as-a-dir has numerous advantages, but enough have been
David>> discussed.  Short list is image mounts, tarballs, streams,
David>> metas, and namespace unification.  Longer list and explanations
David>> can be found if you RTFA.

> And it has numerous dis-advantages as well, since it doesn't have a
> good set of semantics and syntax defined yet, nor does it explain
> except by vigorous handwaving the performance and security impacts it
> can have.

> My personal feeling is that the mount(8) command should be the tool
> used to extract and expose the internal namespace of files like this
> and to then graft it onto the standard Unix namespace with gross Unix
> semantics, but it's own wacky internal semantics.  This way, standard
> tools don't care, but special tools which know how to handle it can do
> what they want.


>> mount -t tarfs /some/place/on/disk/foo.tar.gz /mnt/tar
>> cp /var/tmp/img.gif .
>> umount /mnt/tar

> Oops!  Someone did a rm /some/place/on/disk/foo.tar.gz between steps
> one and two.  Now what happens?  Please define those semantics...

  Uhm, can you delete a file (loop) that is mounted?

> John