nullfs in 4.10

Allan Fields bsd at afields.ca
Tue Jun 22 19:33:35 GMT 2004


On Tue, Jun 22, 2004 at 03:09:18PM +0200, Bjoern Koenig wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> first of all:
> 
> THIS FILESYSTEM TYPE IS NOT YET FULLY SUPPORTED
> (READ: IT DOESN'T WORK) AND USING IT MAY, IN FACT,
> DESTROY DATA ON YOUR SYSTEM. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
> BEWARE OF DOG. SLIPPERY WHEN WET.

Right, but that's only the short answer: "it's broken".  The more
in-depth answer is that while users may want to use them in production
now: null and other pseudo file systems may still require some work
for prime-time use and it's a valid concern for the platform.  Those
that raise the point aren't being unreasonable, I'm of the opinion
it should be fixed at some point soon.

Having said that: As to whether it belongs in -stable now: yes
people are warned not to use it, why not just remove it?  I think
one argument to keep it in is for completeness: nullfs or similar
belongs in the base (in BSD systems) and taking it out seems like
the wrong answer from a technical standpoint.  Also placing code
in the corner won't fix it: even if it is made to work under 5,
many want to use it in 4 still.  ;)

> My experience:
> 
> I had much less problems with unionfs -b, even with FreeBSD 4.10, to mount
> for example /usr/ports into a jail temporarily. But for everything else you
> should never use it.

What are some other approaches than overlays for jailed environments?
Use NFS instead?

> Bjoern

-- 
 Allan Fields, AFRSL - http://afields.ca
 2D4F 6806 D307 0889 6125  C31D F745 0D72 39B4 5541
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