m5@lynx.UUCP (Mike McNally) (06/25/88)
Is it true that the root file of a file system can be a regular file? It doesn't seem like mkfs can make such a thing, but I can't see anything about mount(2) that would disallow it. If this is true, where's it documented? I am specifically interested in 4.[23], but if SV has this feature I'd like to know. -- Mike McNally of Lynx Real-Time Systems uucp: lynx!m5 (maybe pyramid!voder!lynx!m5 if lynx is unknown)
tytso@athena.mit.edu (Theodore Y. Ts'o) (06/27/88)
In article <3964@lynx.UUCP> m5@lynx.UUCP (Mike McNally) writes: >Is it true that the root file of a file system can be a regular file? >It doesn't seem like mkfs can make such a thing, but I can't see anything >about mount(2) that would disallow it. If this is true, where's it >documented? > >Mike McNally of Lynx Real-Time Systems Well, for while at Athena we were running Todd Brunhoff's Remote File System, which used zero length files as its mountpoints. (Note: this is NOT the RFS which most people commonly think of) We eventually switched over to NFS, but it CAN be done. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Theodore Ts'o mit-eddie!mit-athena!tytso 3 Ames St., Cambridge, MA 02139 tytso@athena.mit.edu If it's for real, it isn't!