Re: Unionmount status?

[Ric Wheeler <ricwheeler@gmail.com>]

On 04/12/2011 05:36 PM, Michal Suchanek wrote:
> On 12 April 2011 22:31, Ric Wheeler<ricwheeler@gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On 04/12/2011 11:00 AM, Michal Suchanek wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> as some already know the Unionmount VFS union which has been in
>>> development for some years now is the only True Union (TM) that can be
>>> accepted into the kernel mainline by the VFS maintainers (for reasons
>>> of their own which you can surely find if you search the web or ask
>>> them directly).
>>>
>>> The current UnionMount version that can be found here:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/val/linux-2.6.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/ext2_works
>>>
>>> works for me as good as aufs does. That is I can build a live CD using
>>> this unioning solution and it boots and runs without any apparent
>>> issues.
>>>
>>> There are probably many possible uses of the union which I did not
>>> test nor did I test long term stability of using the unioned
>>> filesystem. As far as ephemeral live systems go it works fine for me,
>>> though.
>>>
>>> The issue is that while the code is (nearly) finished it is not yet
>>> merged into mainline and as I am not familiar with the details of
>>> ever-changing Linux VFS layer forward-porting this code to current
>>> kernels is somewhat challenging.
>>>
>>> What is the plan with unionmount now?
>>>
>>> What is required  for it to be merged into mainline?
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Michal
>> Hi Michal,
>>
>> People are actively looking to see what union mount (or overlayfs) solution
>> to pursue. Val has shifted her focus away from kernel hacking these days,
>> but did refresh her patch set in the last month or so.
> I am not aware of such refreshed patch set, at least it is not
> published in her repo.
>

Val posted the refreshed patches with the title on March 22nd:

http://lwn.net/Articles/435019/

Ric

>> Miklos has an overlay file system that has also been posted upstream.
> I have no idea about his other overlay filesystem either.
>
>> I think that testing like you did and getting more eyes to look at the code
>> is the next key step for both projects.
>>
> Could you provide more details?
>
> I am not following the Linux fs development closely.
>
> Thanks
>
> Michal