unionfs, was Re: [Fedora-livecd-list] Kadischi: roadmap from Board meeting ?

[Jane Dogalt]

--- Bill Nottingham <notting at redhat.com> wrote:

> Jane Dogalt (jdogalt at yahoo.com) said: 
> > > > 2) unionfs via initramfs (forget read-only root)
> > > 
> > > Since unionfs isn't in the Fedora kernels, it's not really something we
> > > can count on right now.  And there are significant concerns about it
> > > from some of our kernel developers that are likely to keep it from being
> > > a good option.
> >  
> > Can you enumerate at least a couple of those concerns?  I see huge
> advantages,
> > which have caused several livecd projects to already utilize it.  I don't
> mind
> > kadischi opting not to use unionfs, but I would like to know why.
> 
> Flaming pile of deadlocking goo when testing here, including causing
> panics after it failed to mount.

Yeah, I noticed some vaguely similar behaviour on mount failures.  Then I
reordered some options which seemed like they should be order independent, and
things seemed to work just fine.

Then I just now read the unionfs docs more closely, and I can see why kadischi
will not be using it in the near future.

I could probably try to track down this answer on archives of other forums, but
if you could save me the hassle-

Do rh/fedora's kernel developers foresee a working implementation of unionfs at
any point?  I.e.  Do they acknowlege a desire for an issueless implementation
of the same functionality, and do they see it as possible?  (obviously fuse
based unionfs probably need not apply...  or rather, thats a linuxrc/nash that
I'm almost afraid to contemplate)

How about the other implementation mini_fo?

-jdog

P.S. - I'll take it upon myself to experiment with how bad unionfs really is in
the context of a fedora based livecd.  I just can't get over the desire to be
able to do a yum install on a livecd.  I wonder how messed up things would get
doing a unionfs implementation purely with bindmounted files... (that seems
likely to be more insane than living with existing unionfs issues)



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