February 21, 2007 at 18:16Haiku introduces UserlandFS and NetFS support
Haiku developer Ingo Weinhold has added a new UserlandFS component to the Haiku repository. This component is designed to provide stable and convenient development tools for file system modules. Prior to this, neither Haiku nor BeOS had such a toolkit.
Ingo also added the following modules using UserlandFS:
Module for the ReiserFS 3.6 file system in read mode; Module for the RAM FS file system (not yet completed, is under development); NetFS network file system module.
About the NetFS module is worth telling more. This module provides a network file system designed specifically for Haiku and designed for remote access via LAN networks to drives of computers running Haiku OS. Of the distinguishing features of NetFS, it is worth noting support for the attributes of the BFS file system and the live queries mechanism.
At the moment, the NetFS module has fully functional functionality, only the graphical NetFS configuration utility is missing. Therefore, to configure the folders and access rights provided over the network, a configuration file is used. The client provided by the module automatically detects the servers and folders provided by them running on the network. NetFS running on BeOS R5
While UserlandFS works only under BeOS R5, it will soon be modified to work with the Haiku file system interface (it is slightly different from the implementation in BeOS R5). Hopefully, the availability of such tools will accelerate the development of file system modules for Haiku. Although debugging tools for developing file systems were already in Haiku, they have some limitations that can be avoided using the UserlandFS toolkit. So the “File System Terminal” (FS shell) emulates the part of the kernel responsible for working with the file system (VFS) and provides a CLI interface for executing test commands. In addition, the toolkit allows you to use any application or test program (for example, Tracker) to access the file system. Moreover, the program will work with the file system in the same way
Ingo also noted that:
Source: haiku-os.org
Ingo also added the following modules using UserlandFS:
Module for the ReiserFS 3.6 file system in read mode; Module for the RAM FS file system (not yet completed, is under development); NetFS network file system module.
About the NetFS module is worth telling more. This module provides a network file system designed specifically for Haiku and designed for remote access via LAN networks to drives of computers running Haiku OS. Of the distinguishing features of NetFS, it is worth noting support for the attributes of the BFS file system and the live queries mechanism.
At the moment, the NetFS module has fully functional functionality, only the graphical NetFS configuration utility is missing. Therefore, to configure the folders and access rights provided over the network, a configuration file is used. The client provided by the module automatically detects the servers and folders provided by them running on the network. NetFS running on BeOS R5
While UserlandFS works only under BeOS R5, it will soon be modified to work with the Haiku file system interface (it is slightly different from the implementation in BeOS R5). Hopefully, the availability of such tools will accelerate the development of file system modules for Haiku. Although debugging tools for developing file systems were already in Haiku, they have some limitations that can be avoided using the UserlandFS toolkit. So the “File System Terminal” (FS shell) emulates the part of the kernel responsible for working with the file system (VFS) and provides a CLI interface for executing test commands. In addition, the toolkit allows you to use any application or test program (for example, Tracker) to access the file system. Moreover, the program will work with the file system in the same way
Ingo also noted that:
UserlandFS interface is identical to the interface used by the kernel to work with file systems. This correspondence of interfaces is convenient for developers who want to write a file system module for the kernel. They can develop, test and debug it in user space, and then simply rebuild the module for use by its kernel. Besides the fact that the file system with bugs launched in user space does not cause KDL, it also allows you to use the richer debugging tools available in user space (breakpoints, step-by-step execution, etc.).
Source: haiku-os.org