vfs interface - ioctl question

[Simo Sorce]

On Mon, 2002-11-25 at 23:52, Anu Engineer wrote:
> Hi ,
> 
> I have been looking at the SAMBA VFS layer, and I have a request 
> for a function to be added to the interface.
> 
> I would like to propose an ioctl like function where file system defined
> parameters can be passed back and forth between SAMBA and physical
> file-system. 
> 
> This will be useful in cases where the file system supports some
> features over and above ordinary Unix file systems. For example,
> Creation Time, if we have an ioctl call we can use that to set and get
> creation time on files with minimum modification to samba.

The right thing is to support all the features an NTFS support.
We are already planning to radically change the interface to be more
flexible and, above all to make the ntfs->posix translation a module so
that it can be replaced for richer or different then posix file systems.

> I propose something of the form
> 
> int 
> vfs_ioctl( struct connection_struct * conn, struct files_struct * fsp,
> ...);
> 
> or something like 
> 
> int 
> vfs_ioctl ( struct connection_struct * conn, struct files_struct * fsp,
> ulong cmd, void * inbuf,size_t in_size,  void* outbuf, size_t out_size).

> of course I realize the nightmare of maintaining an IOCTL list, but I am
> hoping in the case of SAMBA it would not be as bad as something like an
> OS, and  this feature will be used to add extensions to SAMBA so that
> the capabilities of underlying file systems can be reflected more
> accurately in SAMBA.

I'm not sure this is a good idea.
How would you like to use these ioctl then?

Simo.

-- 
Simo Sorce - simo.sorce at xsec.it
Xsec s.r.l.
via Durando 10 Ed. G - 20158 - Milano
tel. +39 02 2399 7130 - fax: +39 02 700 442 399
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