Re: [autofs] [RFC] Towards a Modern Autofs

[Ian Kent]

On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, Mike Waychison wrote:

> >
> >This may sound a little silly but it may be able to be done using
> >stackable filesystem methods (aka. Zadok et. al.). I'm thinking of an
> >autofs filesystem stacked on a host filesystem. The dentrys corresponding
> >to mount points marked in some way and the mount occuring under it, on top
> >of the host filesystem. Yes I know it sounds ugly but maybe it's not.
> >Maybe it's actually quite simple. I can't give an opinion yet as I'm still
> >thinking it through and haven't done any feasibility. However, this
> >approach would lend itself to providing autofs filesystem transparency. A
> >requirement as yet not discussed.
> >
> >Ian
> >
> >
> >
> Doing stackable filesystems is still an area of OS research.  It turns
> out to be a very hard problem to solve (if it's possible at all).
> Although there are systems in the wild that appear to work, they are
> usually sub-optimal because there remains alot of issues such as
> maintaining coherent caches, as well as just staying coherent given that
> one filesystem may be directly accessible while also accessed from
> another overlayed filesystem.

Yes I see that in what I've read.

But I'm thinking of a very tightly controlled autofs layer controlled
only by automount. Once owned by automount that part of the underlying fs
could only be accessed via automount. The boundry cases obviously are
a sensitive area.

>
> Not really something you'd want to waste alot of time on unless your
> looking for a phd thesis. ;)

A masters one day might be good.

Ian



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