VFS on VFS: A flexible usage of file systems on UNIX

✍ Scribed by Ikkyu Kazumi Takeuchi; Yasuichi Nakayama

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 534 KB
• Volume: 89
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1042-0967
• DOI: 10.1002/ecjc.20276

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

In a UNIX‐type operating system, the VFS mechanism enables multiple different file systems to be used on one computer. However, when the VFS mechanism is used, the various file systems must be discriminated by using individual directories. Therefore, multiple file systems cannot normally be mounted on one directory and used properly. As a result, file systems having various features such as NFS or tmpfs are not used efficiently enough. In the current research, the authors respond to this problem by proposing the TAKFS file system, which superimposes the name spaces of multiple arbitrary file systems in the same directory to enable those file systems to be handled trans‐parently. TAKFS transparently and automatically apportions actual files among the various file systems according to a combination of parameters and settings made in advance by each user indicating the files that are to be placed in each file system. If TAKFS is used, a flexible and extremely convenient system can be constructed by using currently existing file systems without changing them at all. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 3, 89(9): 22–33, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecjc.20276