Messages in this thread | | | From | (H. Peter Anvin) | Subject | Re: Getting IOCTL's into VFS File System Drivers | Date | 10 Nov 1999 22:35:19 GMT |
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Followup to: <3829EC80.8BE5F32B@timpanogas.com> By author: "Jeff V. Merkey" <jmerkey@timpanogas.com> In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel > > Also, > > Along the same lines, it would be really cool if the fsck capability was > made a part of the VFS as a function call (which is how it is in Windows > 2000 FS drivers), so Linux could have a single FSCK utility that would > do file system fixup on all of the FS's in the kernel, rather than > requiring each FS to provide it's own. In the Microsoft Windows 2000 > Implementation, it's implemented as a single function call that gets > invoked automatically (or manually) when a volume mount fails. They did > it this way so that all their Windows tools would work with the > different file system drivers without having to need a specially written > program for each file system. They also have hooks for file system > defrag, and backup/restore integrated into their IFS. If we could > extend the VFS to do the same types of things, it would mean Linux would > only need a single set of "generic" file system repair, defrag, and > backup/restore utilities that would work with all the FS drivers in > Linux. >
You're kidding, right?!
This is definitely *not* kernel stuff. fsck is the same complexity no matter where it lives, and it is complex enough that it has nothing to do in the kernel.
"A specially written program" *IS* a driver. The fsck driver for a filesystem (fsck.<fsname>) belongs in user space.
Backup/restore, however, is another issue. There is a standard interface for that... it's called "the filesystem". It has been argued that one thing that a backup utility would need that isn't cleanly provided is a root-only open() flag to not set atime. (There has been talks about adding hacks backup/restore of non-Unix filesystems, but those hacks are inherently filesystem specific anyway.)
-hpa
-- <hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private! "Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
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