lkml.org 
[lkml]   [2008]   [Feb]   [14]   [last100]   RSS Feed
Views: [wrap][no wrap]   [headers]  [forward] 
 
Messages in this thread
/
Date
From
SubjectRe: Is there a "blackhole" /dev/null directory?
Am Thu, 14 Feb 2008 16:00:06 +0100 (CET)
schrieb Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@computergmbh.de>:

>
> On Feb 14 2008 10:46, Andi Kleen wrote:
> >Jasper Bryant-Greene <jasper@unix.geek.nz> writes:
> >>
> >> This could be done fairly trivially with FUSE, and IMHO is a good
> >> use for FUSE because since you're just throwing most data away,
> >> performance is not a concern.
>
> There is a much more interesting 'problem' with a "/dev/null
> directory".
>
> Q: Why would you need such a directory?
> A: To temporarily fool a program into believing it wrote something.
>
> Q: Should all files disappear? (e.g. "unlink after open")
> A: Maybe not, programs may stat() the file right afterwards and
> get confused by the "inexistence".
>
> Q: What if a program attempts to mkdir /dev/nullmnt/foo to just
> create a file /dev/nullmnt/foo/barfile?
> A: /dev/nullmnt/foo must continue to exist or be accepted for a while,
> or perhaps for eternity.

Well, the problem seems to be that a "directory" is not just data but
also contains metadata. While it's easy to write data to /dev/null, you
cannot simply discard metadata associated with a directory. So, such a
"/dev/null-directory" would have to remember metadata (at least all
created filenames including subdirectories) in the same way as other
filesystems do. Only file _content_ can be discarded.
To be honest, I still cannot see many sensible usecases for that...

Thanks,
Hans



\
 
 \ /
  Last update: 2008-02-14 16:23    [W:0.049 / U:0.708 seconds]
©2003-2020 Jasper Spaans|hosted at Digital Ocean and TransIP|Read the blog|Advertise on this site