Bug 99904 – sys-fs/unionfs request for unmask

• Status: RESOLVED LATER
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description postmodern 2005-07-22 06:16:08 UTC]

I've now been using unionfs-1.0.12a on both amd64 and x86 in my development
tasks and environment and it is very usable. Request for unmask.

Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.




Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13
Portage 2.0.51.22-r2 (default-linux/amd64/2004.3, gcc-3.4.3, glibc-2.3.5-r0,
2.6.12-gentoo-r6 x86_64)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.12-gentoo-r6 x86_64 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3400+
dev-lang/python:     2.3.5
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.10
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.59-r6
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.5
sys-devel/binutils:  2.15.92.0.2-r10
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.18-r1
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.11-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-pipe -O3 -march=k8"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config
/usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/
/usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/
/usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-pipe -O3 -march=k8"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="amd64 X aac alsa avi berkdb bitmap-fonts cdr crypt curl dvd encode esd fam
flac foomaticdb fortran gif gnome gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 guile imagemagick imlib
ipv6 java jpeg libvisual libwww lzw lzw-tiff mad motif mp3 mpeg multilib ncurses
network nls ogg oggvorbis opengl pam pdflib perl png python quicktime readline
samba sdl softmmu speex spell sqlite ssl tcltk tcpd tetex theora tiff
truetype-fonts type1-fonts usb userlocales vorbis xine xml xml2 xmms xpm xv zlib
userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc"
Unset:  ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS

[Comment 1 Christian Andreetta (RETIRED) 2005-07-24 17:48:22 UTC]

I disagree: unionfs is perfect for read-only usage, but r/w users can incurr in
kernel oops, thread race condition and data losses (particularly in concurrent
hard link creations or massive deletions) [1].
The main problems lie in the kernel VFS architecture, which originally was not
though for deep abstractions (reiserfs4 is another case in which such
limitations are revealed).
1.0.13 fixes some of these (==deletions) limitations, but has issues as well.
The development is very promising, though, and I think stabilization could come
in a couple of releases.

genstef: I think this is a wontfix.

[1] http://www.fsl.cs.sunysb.edu/pipermail/unionfs/2005-July/thread.html

[Comment 2 postmodern 2005-07-24 17:57:15 UTC]

After posting this request, I found several minor inconsistencies with the
unionctl utility along with an occasional Kernel Panic with unioning and
deunioning several branches in r/w mode. I agree this is a promising tool but
more testing needs to be done.

[Comment 3 Danny van Dyk (RETIRED) 2005-08-01 06:01:38 UTC]

Won't go stable on amd64...

[Comment 4 Stefan Schweizer (RETIRED) 2005-08-11 02:01:54 UTC]

maybe it will go stable later, just reopne when you consider it stable.