[PATCH 2.6.11.4 1/1] fs: new filesystem implementation VXEXT1.0

[PATCH 2.6.11.4 1/1] fs: new filesystem implementation VXEXT1.0

[Jens Langner]

Hi,

The following URL is link to a large patch for a possible integration of 
a new filesystem implementation in the misc section of the kernel tree. 
It features a reverse engineered implementation of the so called 
VXEXT1.0 DOS filesystem which is commonly used on VxWorks RTOS systems 
from Wind River Inc., where the "extended DOS filesystem" mode is enabled.

The VXEXT filesystem is more or less a FAT16 based filesystem which was 
slightly modified by Wind River to allow the storage of more than 2GB 
data on a partition, as well as storing filenames with a maximum of 40 
characters length. To achieve that, VxWorks uses a dynamic cluster size 
calculation which is based on the partition size where clusters can be 
larger than 32K. In addition, it uses a slightly modified directroy
entry structure to allow to store filenames larger than 8+3 characters.

Please find the patch file accessible through the following URL:
http://www.jens-langner.de/vxext_fs/vxext_fs_1_0-linux-2.6.11.4.patch

In addition, refer the detailed technical documentation on my 
implementation and the root directory of my distribution as well:
http://www.jens-langner.de/vxext_fs/Documentation/vxext.txt
http://www.jens-langner.de/vxext_fs/

Please note that large portions of the implementation are based on the 
already existing FAT16 (msdos) implementation in the kernel tree. 
However, instead of patching/drilling the original FAT16 implementation, 
an "outsourced" rework for developing the VEXT implementation was 
considered.

cheers,
jens
-- 
Jens Langner                                         Ph: +49-351-4716545
Lannerstrasse 1
01219 Dresden                                Jens.Langner@light-speed.de
Germany                                      http://www.jens-langner.de/

Re: [PATCH 2.6.11.4 1/1] fs: new filesystem implementation VXEXT1.0

[Sam Ravnborg]

On Thu, Mar 17, 2005 at 04:16:36PM +0100, Jens Langner wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> The following URL is link to a large patch for a possible integration of 
> a new filesystem implementation in the misc section of the kernel tree. 

If you like people to review it te best thing to do is to break it up
in smaller logical selfcontained pieces (not just file-by-file) and post
these. People on this mailing list seldom follow URL's.

	Sam

Re: [PATCH 2.6.11.4 1/1] fs: new filesystem implementation VXEXT1.0

[Jens Langner]

Sam Ravnborg wrote:

>>The following URL is link to a large patch for a possible integration of 
>>a new filesystem implementation in the misc section of the kernel tree. 
> 
> If you like people to review it te best thing to do is to break it up
> in smaller logical selfcontained pieces (not just file-by-file) and post
> these. People on this mailing list seldom follow URL's.

Sorry, but as the patch is a complete new implementation the patch file 
is almost 110KB long. So I thought it might be a better idea to just 
post an URL.
Also the "Documentation/SubmittingPatches" file in the kernel tree does 
suggest to just post an URL if the files are too large. And IMHO 110KB 
is quite large, isn't it? ;)
But if someone wants me to submitt the whole patchfile, I can of course 
do so.

cheers,
jens
-- 
Jens Langner                                         Ph: +49-351-4716545
Lannerstrasse 1
01219 Dresden                                Jens.Langner@light-speed.de
Germany                                      http://www.jens-langner.de/

Re: [PATCH 2.6.11.4 1/1] fs: new filesystem implementation VXEXT1.0

[Chris Wedgwood]

On Thu, Mar 17, 2005 at 04:16:36PM +0100, Jens Langner wrote:

> The VXEXT filesystem is more or less a FAT16 based filesystem which
> was slightly modified by Wind River to allow the storage of more
> than 2GB data on a partition, as well as storing filenames with a
> maximum of 40 characters length.

Can this not then be folded into the existing vfat filesystem?

Re: [PATCH 2.6.11.4 1/1] fs: new filesystem implementation VXEXT1.0

[Jens Langner]

Chris Wedgwood wrote:

>>The VXEXT filesystem is more or less a FAT16 based filesystem which
>>was slightly modified by Wind River to allow the storage of more
>>than 2GB data on a partition, as well as storing filenames with a
>>maximum of 40 characters length.
> 
> Can this not then be folded into the existing vfat filesystem?

Sure it can. But I thought that as the VXEXT1.0 filesystem is per 
definition not a vfat filesystem it might be better to have it separated 
and not drill it into the IMHO anyway overly mixed up vfat/fat code 
already in the linux kernel tree. Even if that means that some parts in 
the code of the vxext filesystem are probably equal to the msdos 
implementation, please note that large parts which were not needed by 
the vxext implementation was dropped by me for clarifications.

So I still hope that my implementation is going to be considered for a 
future kernel tree integration as it may be quite usefull for embeeded 
systems wanting to access VxWorks partitions.

cheers,
jens
-- 
Jens Langner                                         Ph: +49-351-4716545
Lannerstrasse 1
01219 Dresden                                Jens.Langner@light-speed.de
Germany                                      http://www.jens-langner.de/