FUSE needs a way to set "hints" for file-management

[nf2]

Mildred wrote:
> Le Tue 10/07/2007 à 21:50 Claes H à écrit:
>   
>> I also think the xattrs suggestion is good, technically. Probably it
>> will not be feasible until you can count on the file system of the
>> user's home directory having xattrs available. This seems to take its
>> time. My gut feeling is that we can never count on this unless it is
>> made a requirement in LSB, unfortunately...
>>     
>
> I think this is the way to do that ?
>
> Since the fuse filesystems can set extended attributes, (even if the
> uderlying filesystem don't support these) I don't see how it coud be a
> problem.
>
> Fuse filesystems that want to add this feature would simply add a
> system extended ttribute to the root.
>
> Mildred
>
>   

i agree that extended attributes in the root of the  fuse-filesystem 
(the mountpoint-directory) would be a nice solution. FUSE modules could 
also expose some state information this way:

* internal connection status
* busy/idle
* if the connection is dead (someone pulled the servers network cable): 
counts of reconnect failures...

but are extended attributes available everywhere where FUSE is?

another nice option would be ioctl() support for FUSE. But the FAQ says 
that's not possible...

http://fuse.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/FAQ#Why_doesnx27.t_FUSE_forward_ioctlx28.x29._calls_to_the_filesystemx3f.

norbert