Re: Why df does not work

[Michael Bacarella <mbac@nyct.net>]

>     Marcus> The Hurd is a multiserver OS, and there is no central
>     Marcus> authority for mounted filesystems.  What we could do is to
>     Marcus> write a database server where filesystems can register
>     Marcus> themselves if they want.
> 
> 	That sound like fun.  How does it work?  This is the server
>       which df would used when invoked with no filesystem as an
>       argument?  Is there a program which would do something similar
>       for some other service?  What should I have read before asking
>       you these questions?
> 
> 	Let's add an optional call in mount (is mount the right
>       place?) a call to
> 	register_mount_point(host, remote_host, remote_mnt_pt, local_mnt_pt)
>         (or some such).

Sha. That's the thing. There is no mount syscall.

Mounted filesystems are merely translators attached to the file namespace.

The mount command is merely a script that ties a filesystem server to a
file.

If it's a script, what's to stop someone from writing a mount command
that cimcumvents the step to register mounted filesystems?

I suppose the idea here is to make it a "trust me, these are the mounted
filesystems" mechanism, but that's hardly good enough for me. :)

Also, if you were going to do it that way, I personally would prefer:
 
echo "/dev/xxxx /usr/local" >> /etc/mounts

as opposed to communicating with a PostgreSQL database.  :)

-MB