🚀 go-pugleaf

Phil Hunt wrote:
> 
> I had an idea the other day for an application that allows data/input
> from various formats to look like it is a normal filesystem.
> 
> The sort of thing I have in mind would be a shared object or
> executable which translates between the format and the filesystem
> when the user is doing command-line functions such as ls, cp, cd
> etc, and saving and loading files.
> 
> For example, there could be a translator for ftp linked to an /ftp
> directory, so one could say at the prompt:
> 
>    $ cd /ftp/ftp.demon.co.uk/pub
> 
> (which goes into the /pub directory on ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/)
> 
>    $ ls
> 
> (which lists all the files in that directory, in nomal Unix format)
> 
>    $ cp q* ~/download
> 
> (which copies all files whocse names start with q into ~/download. The
> way this works is that cp thinks it is copying files as normal, but
> the ftp-translator translates the request to read files into ftp get
> requests (binary mode).)
> 
> Other applications this could be useful for include:
> 
>  - http urls. For example I could grab a html file from the net by:
>     $ cp /http/www.linux.org/index.html ~/mine.html
> 
>  - encrypted filesystems. Files in the encrypted FS are transparently
>    decrypted when they are read, and transparently encrypted when they
>    are written to.
> 
>  - version control systems. Reading a file returns the latest version.
>    writing to it (if you have permission)
> 
>  - easier access to non-Linux filessystems. At the moment, if you
>    want to access (for example) a FAT32 filesystem, you need a kernel
>    that will do so. With this method, the ability to access new
>    filesystems can be plugged into the system without having to
>    recompile the kernel.
> 
> (1) does anything like this already exist?
> 
> (2) is it feasible to do?
> 
> (3) is it worthwhile to do?
> 
> (4) what could we call it? At the moment I'm thinking of "PenguinMorph"
> because it allows data sources to "change shape" so they look like
> filesystems, but I'm sure others could think of better names.
> 
> (5) how could it be implemented? What I'm thinking of is an API, and
> an extension to the mount command so it understands this API, eg:
> 
>    # mount -morph /usr/lib/ftpTranslator.so /ftp
> 
> (where ftpTranslator.so is a binary which implements the API for ftp
> devices.)
> 
> Presumably changes to the kernel would also be necessary.

Maybe you should take a look at autofs. Which supports ftp automounting.

<entry from man 5 autofs>

         kernel    -ro,soft,intr       ftp.kernel.org:/pub/linux

It also works with smb shares and cdroms floppy's nfs etc.


Greetings,

Bas