description:
How it works:
--
Basically ifs is a copy of ffs, overriding some vfs/vnops. (Yes, hack.)
I didn't see the need in duplicating all of sys/ufs/ffs to get this
off the ground.
File creation is done through a special file - 'newfile' . When newfile
is called, the system allocates and returns an inode. Note that newfile
is done in a cloning fashion:
fd = open("newfile", O_CREAT|O_RDWR, 0644);
fstat(fd, &st);
printf("new file is %d\n", (int)st.st_ino);
Once you have created a file, you can open() and unlink() it by its returned
inode number retrieved from the stat call, ie:
fd = open("5", O_RDWR);
The creation permissions depend entirely if you have write access to the
root directory of the filesystem.
To get the list of currently allocated inodes, VOP_READDIR has been added
which returns a directory listing of those currently allocated.
--
What this entails:
* patching conf/files and conf/options to include IFS as a new compile
option (and since ifs depends upon FFS, include the FFS routines)
* An entry in i386/conf/NOTES indicating IFS exists and where to go for
an explanation
* Unstaticize a couple of routines in src/sys/ufs/ffs/ which the IFS
routines require (ffs_mount() and ffs_reload())
* a new bunch of routines in src/sys/ufs/ifs/ which implement the IFS
routines. IFS replaces some of the vfsops, and a handful of vnops -
most notably are VFS_VGET(), VOP_LOOKUP(), VOP_UNLINK() and VOP_READDIR().
Any other directory operation is marked as invalid.
What this results in:
* an IFS partition's create permissions are controlled by the perm/ownership of
the root mount point, just like a normal directory
* Each inode has perm and ownership too
* IFS does *NOT* mean an FFS partition can be opened per inode. This is a
completely seperate filesystem here
* Softupdates doesn't work with IFS, and really I don't think it needs it.
Besides, fsck's are FAST. (Try it :-)
* Inodes 0 and 1 aren't allocatable because they are special (dump/swap IIRC).
Inode 2 isn't allocatable since UFS/FFS locks all inodes in the system against
this particular inode, and unravelling THAT code isn't trivial. Therefore,
useful inodes start at 3.
Enjoy, and feedback is definitely appreciated!
