FS OS sysprog

[jettero]

I was daydreaming about this all day. I realized I don't know where to start. I'd like a Filesys::FTP or something wherein, I could invoke an arcane mount command that let me mount a remote ftp connection to a directory.

Maybe that sounds like pure evil ... Anyhoo, an ls of the mounted fs would do an ftp ls. cd's into the directory structure would cause all sorts of ftp directory tests. Any type of file manipulation would take place in some sort of buffer space and when it was all done (e.g. a file close or something) the file would be swapped with the remote copy. ...

I'm not sure about the logistics of it, but are there any perl tools that would help me with this evil project? I did spend some time looking for tools that would let me mount a file system and do evil voodo... I could not find any.

[tilly]

Well as you told me privately, you want this for Linux, and that means a kernel module. Perl is actually an abysmal choice for writing kernels in. They have all sorts of silly limits like staying within very little stack space.

However not all hope is lost. The idea you want does come up from time to time. Also it seems that there is something out there called userfs, which is a kernel interface to user level programs that implement a filesystem.

Seriously I would do a good search on this and see what you can turn up. I doubt that any great solutions exist, but you are far from alone in wanting this, and you should be able to scare up something.

And BTW, good luck. :-)

EDIT
FWIW my personal opinion on the question is that it is something a lot of people want. Just because a pure Perl solution would be a bad fit doesn't mean it isn't a good question to ask. Indeed if jettero does manage to track down and play around with userfs, I would love to see a Perl interface built. Perl may not be a good fit for a kernel, but it is great for building interesting prototypes...

[qi3ber]

While this isn't necessarily a perlized solution, you might find some useful information if you look into the VFS libs originally written for MidnightCommander which has since been sucked into gnome. VFS is an attempt to give a single programming interface to a variety of file systems.

One of the filesystems which I know they have been working on is a FS over FTP.

I hope that this aids you in your quest.



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   [ qi3ber ] I used to think that I knew it all, then I started to listen.