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NetBSD-SoC: File system access utilities

Mentor : Antti Kantee
Student : Arnaud Ysmal

What is it?

   The aim of this project is to write a set of utilities to access and modify a file system image without having to mount it.

   It relies on the ukfs library, so as to use the file systems source code from the kernel instead of duplicating it. By doing so, it benefits from the widely tested sources from the kernel. As mentioned by Antti Kantee, the kernel sources can also benefit from the testing and slightly different usage patterns provided by this project.

Status

• April 21, 2008: Community Bonding Period -- Students get to know mentors, read documentation, get up to speed to begin working on their projects.
• _May 26, 2008: Students begin coding for their GSoC projects; Google begins issuing initial student payments
• June 28, 2008: a brief report on progress a month after the official start of coding:
     Most of the must-have components have been written but still need some more testing, clean up and optimisation.
     The following programs and options have been implemented :
  

  Program	Options
  cat	b, e, n, s, t, v
  chflags	h, R, v
  chmod	h, R, v
  chown	h, R, v
  cp	P, R, v
  diff	(equivalent to diff -q)
  ln	f, h, i, n, s, v
  ls	A, a, c, F, l, n, p, R, r, S, T, t, u
  mkdir	p
  mkfifo	m
  mknod	F, g, R, r, m, u
  mv	i, v
  rm	R, r, v
  rmdir	p
  touch	-

  
  A proof of concept of the command console tool has also been written.
  
• July 7, 2008: Mentors and students can begin submitting mid-term evaluations.
• July 14, 2008: Mid-term evaluation deadline; Google begins issuing mid-term student payments provided passing student survey is on file.
• August 11, 2008: Suggested 'pencils down' date. Take a week to scrub code, write tests, improve documentation, etc.
• August 18, 2008: Firm 'pencils down' date. Mentors, students and organization administrators can begin submitting final evaluations to Google.
• September 1, 2008: Final evaluation deadline; Google begins issuing student and mentoring organization payments provided forms and evaluations are on file.

Deliverables

• A set of tools (cat, diff, ls) to read files from the file system image.
• A set of tools (chflags, chmod, chown, cp, ln, mkdir, mkfifo, mknod, mv, rename, rm, rmdir, touch) to update/delete/create files.
• An interactive command line tool to read/browse/create/delete files and directory.

• TBA

Documentation

[Insert use and test cases, instruction for integration into NetBSD, installation, configuration, using; reference existing standards or other existing works where appropriate]

Technical Details

These tools rely on the ukfs library which uses RUMPs (Runnable Userspace Meta Programs).

• cat(1),
• chflags(1),
• chmod(1),
• chown(8),
• cp(1),
• ln(1),
• ls(1),
• mkdir(1),
• mkfifo(1),
• mknod(8),
• mv(1),
• rm(1),
• rmdir(1).

Arnaud Ysmal <ysmal.arnaud@gmail.com> $Id: index.html,v 1.4 2008/06/28 20:12:44 stacktic Exp $