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- Very short explanation for the impatient!!!
-
- Umsdos is a file system driver that run on top the MSDOS fs driver.
- It is written by Jacques Gelinas (jacques@solucorp.qc.ca)
-
- Umsdos is not a file system per se, but a twist to make a boring
- one into a useful one.
-
- It gives you:
-
- long file name
- Permissions and owner
- Links
- Special files (devices, pipe...)
- All is need to be a linux root fs.
-
- There is plenty of documentation on it in the source. A formated document
- made from those comments is available from
- sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/system/Filesystems/umsdos.
-
- Mostly...
-
- You mount a DOS partition like this
-
- mount -t umsdos /dev/hda3 /mnt
- ^
- ---------|
-
- All option are passed to the msdos drivers. Option like uid,gid etc are
- given to msdos.
-
- The default behavior of Umsdos is to do the same thing as the msdos driver
- mostly passing commands to it without much processing. Again, this is
- the default. After doing the mount on a DOS partition, nothing special
- happen. This is why all mount options are passed to the Msdos fs driver.
-
- Umsdos use a special DOS file --linux-.--- to store the information
- which can't be handle by the normal MsDOS file system. This is the trick.
-
- --linux-.--- is optional. There is one per directory.
-
- **** If --linux-.--- is missing, then Umsdos process the directory the
- same way the msdos driver do. Short file name, no goodies, default
- owner and permissions. So each directory may have or not this
- --linux-.---
-
- Now, how to get those --linux-.---.
-
- \begin joke_section
-
- Well send me a directory content
- and I will send you one customised for you.
- $5 per directory. Add any applicable taxes.
- \end joke_section
-
- A utility umssync creates those. The kernel maintain them. It is available
- from the same directory above (sunsite) in the file umsdos_progs-0.7.tar.gz.
- A compiled version is available in umsdos_progs-0.7.bin.tar.gz.
-
- So in our example, after mounting mnt, we do
-
- umssync .
-
- This will promote this directory (a recursive option is available) to full
- umsdos capabilities (long name ...). A ls -l before and after won't show
- much difference however. The file which were there are still there. But now
- you can do all this:
-
- chmod 644 *
- chown you.your_groupe *
- ls >THIS_IS.A.VERY.LONG.NAME
- ln -s toto tata
- ls -l
-
- Once a directory is promoted, all subdirectory created will inherit that
- promotion.
-
- What happen if you boot DOS and create files in those promoted directories ?
- Umsdos won't notice new files, but will signal removed file (it won't crash).
- Using umssync in /etc/rc will make sure the DOS directory is in sync with
- the --linux-.---.
-
- It is a good idea to put the following command in your RC file just
- after the "mount -a":
-
- mount -a
- /sbin/umssync -i+ -c+ -r99 /umsdos_mount_point
-
- (You put one for each umsdos mount point in the fstab)
-
- This will insure nice operation. A umsdos.fsck is in the making,
- so you will be allowed to managed umsdos partition in the same way
- other filesystem are, using the generic fsck front end.
-
- Hope this helps!
-
-