Subject: Re: kernel vs boot-program
To: Ty Sarna <tsarna@endicor.com>
From: Stefan Grefen <grefen@connie.de.convex.com>
List: tech-kern
Date: 03/15/1994 10:29:21
> 
> davidb@melb.cpr.itg.telecom.com.au wrote:
> > 
> > Where do you do the expansion?  Only in symbolic links?  That way the changes
> > fit "neatly" into the fs-independent namei code and it suddenly works across
> > all fs types.
> 
[...]
> Like fork(), filename component expansions in the kernel may seem ugly
> and unatural to some, but once you've actually tried it you appreciate
> the elegance of the solution.  @sys in particular makes multi-arch
> administration a dream.  It's ever so much easier and cleaner than
> automounter hacks, tangled jungles of symbolic links, etc.
Please not again.  I admit this stuff is useful, but I hate to think
about the consequences for let's say a backup. 
How is xy.@sys handled? As a symlink it wouldn't break anything, but as
a normal entry in the filesystem you would backup one of these twice, or as
a link (but that would introduce links to directories and I'm sure these
will break at least find (it would traverse it twice) ...).

A more generic solution would be to implemented something like SUN's TFS.
NETBSD's lofs could be good starting point for that.

Regards
	Stefan
PS. I volunteer for the TFS code as soon as my logical volume manager is 
finished. (that should be in the near future (2-4 weeks) as I get a decent 
notebook one of the next days)
> 
> -- 
> Ty Sarna                 "As you know, Joel, children have always looked
> tsarna@endicor.com        up to cowboys as role models. And vice versa."
> 


-- 
Stefan Grefen                          Convex Computer GmbH, Frankfurt, Germany
grefen@convex.com		       Phone: +49-69-665270


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