Tool to access ZFS/NFSv4 alternate data streams on FreeBSD?

Rick Macklem rmacklem at uoguelph.ca
Tue Sep 9 21:29:42 UTC 2014


Simon Toedt wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 1:47 PM, Rick Macklem <rmacklem at uoguelph.ca>
> wrote:
> > Jordan Hubbard wrote:
> >> Yep.  I was just describing the experience that OS X went through
> >> in
> >> implementing extattrs / legacy resource fork support.  To recap it
> >> very briefly:  Having NFSv4 support extattrs (or even named
> >> streams,
> >> if you want to go that far) is the comparatively easy part.  It’s
> >> backing them up / copying them around that gets more involved, and
> >> if you can’t back up certain attributes then you’re not likely to
> >> get anyone to want to use them, at which point the whole “sharing”
> >> aspect kind of takes a back seat.
> >>
> > Yep. I strongly suspect you are correct.
> >
> > The question then becomes:
> > - Do we wait and see if someone chooses to get around to doing all
> >   the hard userland work.
> 
> Solaris tools already have support for this. Also AT&T AST from David
> Korn have support for O_XATTR, too.
> 
Hopefully others will correct me if I have this incorrect, but I thought
CDDL code could only be used for optional components of FreeBSD?
I suspect tar and friends are considered core components and that code
for this would have to be written by someone (ie. couldn't use CDDL code?).
(I'm assuming that these tools are in OpenSolaris.)

Be aware that most of FreeBSD's development is done by volunteers in their
spare time, so I have no idea if someone is interested in doing this.

rick

> > or
> > - Do the easy part in the kernel and then hope someone does the
> >   hard userland work because they need it.
> > or
> > - Just decide that the Linux style extended attributes are adequate
> >   and not do resource forks at all?
> 
> -1 for adopting the Linux junk. Basically, as they evolve, they go
> and
> evolve into Solaris's O_XATTR in the next ten years, with the pain of
> constant API changes on the way. Each month someone cries about size
> limit in the Linux style extended attributes or that listing or tar
> support doesn't work etc
> 
> Solaris O_XATTR support has the beauty that it works now and is even
> supported on NFSv4 and is compatible to both Windows and MacOS
> resource forks.
> 
> Simon
> 


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