Samba VFS: Is it really a Virtual File System API?

[Jeremy Allison]

On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 09:22:05PM +0200, Sergio Conde Gómez wrote:
> El 30/09/2011 19:41, Jeremy Allison escribió:
> >On Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 03:21:58PM +0200, Sergio Conde Gómez wrote:
> >>Hi,
> >>
> >>I were searching a way for sharing through samba an online disk
> >>space from a provider that gives an https based API without mounting
> >>or syncing the files on the computer that runs the samba server.
> >>
> >>I have discovered Samba VFS but the developer documentation is old,
> >>its dated 2003, and I don't know if Samba VFS works as an API for
> >>creating Virtual File Systems and sharing them or only for extending
> >>capabilities of existing file systems.
> >>
> >>If Samba VFS is not the way but that can be done with Samba, can
> >>anyone send me in the right direction? (I don't care if I have to
> >>develop a module for samba if there is an API).
> >Samba VFS can be used to create a file system out of thin air :-),
> >not just extend an existing filesystem as all calls from the
> >upper layer code go through it.
> 
> Uhm... I dont see the way for returning file contents, for example,

Yep - easy - just write your own implementation of pread & read.

> or things like that so I want to ask something, is there any updated
> documentation or any example about implementing external
> file-systems? Should I use Transparent or Opaque...

To replace an underlying file system, use opaque.

There aren't any updated docs I'm afraid, but if you ask
questions here I'll try and answer.

Jeremy.