On Sun, Feb 06, 2011 at 10:23:00PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote: > Roger Leigh wrote: > > There are lots of Debian people out there using git, and some of them > > have expressed interest over the years in having the ability to use > > git as a filesystem in its own right (#477942 is an example of one > > in a package I maintain). > > > > I've finally got down to it and written all my thoughts on the topic > > down in a mostly-organised form, which you can find at > > > > http://www.codelibre.net/~rleigh/hashlink.pdf > > > > This paper looks at the concept of object-based storage, and the > > creation of "hashlinks", essentially symlinks which use hashes > > rather than pathnames to refer to a file. > > You may be interested in my git-annex program, which implements just > such a thing, although in user space, not kernel space. > http://git-annex.branchable.com/ I've been meaning to give git-annex a whirl for a while, but I'm afraid I've lacked the time to get intimately acquainted with it. From what I understand, in terms of what a single user could do with it, it's looking pretty equivalent, the major difference being that it's entirely in userspace. It's definitely on my TODO list. I wanted to look at if it was possible to make multi-user store and provide a lightweight kernel interface to access it. It might well be possible to use git-annex as the storage backend for an initial implementation! Following the suggestion to look at log structured filesystems, I took a look at things like Plan9's Venti. It's good stuff; my main objection to most being that they are append-only, with no provision for GC of no longer referenced data. I would consider that a requirement for a general purpose store with rapid turnover of data, especially if you're going to store working copies as well as things of "commit quality", and even things you commit can be temporary for rebasing etc. Regards, Roger -- .''`. Roger Leigh : :' : Debian GNU/Linux http://people.debian.org/~rleigh/ `. `' Printing on GNU/Linux? http://gutenprint.sourceforge.net/ `- GPG Public Key: 0x25BFB848 Please GPG sign your mail.
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