Subject: UserFS 0.7 ALPHA version released
From: [email-masked] (Jeremy Fitzhardinge)
Date: Sat, 4 Jun 1994 18:56:00 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce

[]
		 Announcing: userfs ALPHA version 0.7

Userfs is a mechanism by which normal user processes can be a Linux
filesystem, similar to Plan 9 filesystems or The Hurd's translators.
There are many uses for this, including:

* Prototype filesystems *

Prototype new block allocation algorithms in a user process and debug
with gdb before going into the compile-crash-reboot cycle of kernel
development.

* Infrequent use filesystems *

You want to mount "FooBaz 0X" filesystems under Linux, but you don't
want it that often, and you don't need it to be maximum speed.  Rather
than trying to get the kernel itself to understand, or write
specialised tools, write a filesystem program.

* Add capabilities to existing filesystems *

Want compression, encryption, ACLs?  Have a process to mirror an
existing file tree, but with your own extentions and semantics.

* Completely virtual filesystems and new interfaces *

Add a filesystem-type interface to an existing mechanism, or a
filesystem interface as a new way of representing data.  Sick of FTP?
How about:

	$ mkdir /ftp/tsx-11.mit.edu
	$ cd /ftp/tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/Linux
	$ cp README $HOME

This release has some actual implementations of filesystems doing
things that I've been promising for the last few versions.  It will
probably be much more interesting for non-programmers.

This version is a loadable kernel module which only needs a very small
kernel patch.  The patch supplied is against Linux 1.1.17.

Changes in this release include:
   - More documentation
   - An improved and debugged library interface
   - More filesystems
   - More contributed stuff

The release comes with six filesystems:
   - ftpfs, a filesystem for FTP access. This allows multilple FTP
     sites to be accessed as a filesystem, with a persistent cache of
     data.
   - homer, which simply creates a directory containing symlinks
     to every user's home directory.  Mounted on /u, it makes a
     passible replacement for '~' expansion in your shell which
     works for everything.
   - intfs, an experimental filesystem in which file contents can
     be generated by arbitary shell scripts on the fly as they are
     read.
   - egfs, a very simple example/tutorial filesystem
   - arcfs, written by David Gymer, which allows a compressed tar
     file to be mounted readonly and browsed as a filesystem.
   - mailfs, a simple mail-reading filesystem

This release is available from:
	sunsite.unc.edu:pub/Linux/ALPHA/userfs/userfs-0.7.tar.gz
	tsx-11.mit.edu:pub/linux/ALPHA/userfs/userfs-0.7.tar.gz

* Mailing List *

There is a USERFS channel on the linux activists list server.
To subscribe, send mail with
	X-Mn-Admin: join USERFS
as the first line to [email-masked]

Please send bugs and comments to Jeremy Fitzhardinge <[email-masked]>
or to the mailing list.  Send me mail if you find userfs interesting
and intend doing something with it.

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