Re: 2.2.0 wishlist

Robert Glamm (glamm@mountains.ee.umn.edu)
Fri, 14 Jun 1996 10:05:07 -0500 (CDT)


> : This should be a user-level option, IMHO. Personally, I don't believe in
> : undelete :) and would never expect (or want) a kernel revision to implement
> : support for it. Instead, implement 'erase' and 'undelete' commands at the
> : user level (or replace rm and add unrm?); that way, people that want it
> : can simply install a user-level package, and people that don't can ignore it.
>
> It isn't that simple. You have to be able to undelete files that were
> unlinked by system daemons.

_Why_ would I want to recover files that were unlinked by system daemons?
In my years of system administration, I've never wanted to recover a file
that was for some reason unlinked by the OS or any daemons in it.

As far as I'm concerned, the only people that would ever use undelete would
be the end user. If they write a program that calls unlink(), they're SOL -
they know enough to know the consequences. The only time I can ever imagine
someone wanting a file back is if they executed rm incorrectly; in this
case undelete needs absolutely no kernel support whatsoever.

> The kernel should support this, if the feature is deamed desirable.

Heh, I don't deem it desirable. :)

> Doesn't ext2fs have support for this already?

The bit is there; it is not currently honored by ext2fs (from the chattr
man page).

-- 
Bob Glamm                               | "You can't do a `goto' to a block
Email: glamm@mountains.ee.umn.edu       |  that has been optimized away.
URL:   http://www.cs.umn.edu/~glamm     |  Darn."
Home: (612)623-9437 Work: (612)625-7876 |    - from the perltrap(1) manpage