Alternate Data Stream Support in FreeBSD (was Re: O_XATTR support in FreeBSD?)

[Cedric Blancher]

On 26 November 2013 18:17, Matthew Fleming <mdf at freebsd.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 9:08 AM, Jordan Hubbard <jordan.hubbard at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Nov 26, 2013, at 4:27 AM, Lionel Cons <lionelcons1972 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Could we first agree what we are talking about, please? I'm a bit new
>> > to this thread, but AFAIK we are talking about the Windows Alternate
>> > Data Streams as they appear in networked filesystem like NFSv4 and
>> > CIFS and physical filesystems like NTFS, ZFS and Solaris UFS, right?
>> > ACLs have no direct relation to those streams.
>>
>> Actually, I didn’t think we were talking about alternate data streams
>> myself.  Conceptually they’re equivalent, I guess, but I’ve always through
>> they were somewhat overkill and I’ve yet to encounter an application that
>> seriously uses them.
>
>
> Anyone implementing a SMB/CIFS filesystem on top of FreeBSD (e.g. a vendor)
> will need to come up with support for ADS.  Whether or not any "FreeBSD"
> application has use for them is maybe beside the point -- vendors have a use
> for support.  Though probably every vendor who wants them has already coded
> their own variant.

+1

BTW: FreeBSD uses ZFS as main file system, and ZFS has native O_XATTR
support (aka Alternate Data Streams). How hard is it to add O_XATTR,
VFS_XATTR and FXATTR in the FreeBSD vfs layer?

Ced
-- 
Cedric Blancher <cedric.blancher at gmail.com>
Institute Pasteur