Re: [9front] Help wanted tracking down a bug in divergefs code [unionfs]

[Trevor Higgins <plan9fullfrontal@qs.co.nz>]

Thanks kvik,

Unionfs is definately a keeper. I see why but personally I don't like 
the intermediate mount point requirement.

Unfortunately it will not replace divergefs in my use case. I am not 
saying this is the best approach but I divergefs over the root 
namespace, this precludes any intermediate mount point, as it would 
create a loop.

I have an aversion to historic and obsolete crap and don't appear to 
have any sentimental  attachment  (although I own two pdp11's) to the 
the origins of p9 files and programs.

In keeping with the above, I have moved every file and directory I am 
not partial to into an /attic directory , as well as moving some dirs 
from / into /arch and other changes.

However, I still want to pull changes from 9front.org and I want the 
least hassles and merge conflicts.

This is were divergefs comes in handy. It presents to sysupdate a layout 
of the namespace consistant with the mercurial repository.

The ability to write back to the diverged directory is paramount to its 
success.

If  for example, one of the fortune files is updated (like /lib/theo et 
al), then the changes will be written back to /attic/lib/... and not 
recreated in /lib. So updates don't recruft my namespace but are still 
kept current so I dont get future merge conflicts. But changes to other 
files in /lib will be written back so are kept current.

After I have sysupdated,  I unmount and I am back to a system will less 
cruft.

Before I got sidetracked with this bug , I was on the way to adding in 
some more features to make NS rearranging more seamless.

Thanks for you comments and the code for unionfs.

On 02/18/2020 09:03 AM, raingloom wrote:
> Oh dang, I've been looking for this. Also struggling with divergefs 
> weirdness, but this seems so much simpler.
>
> On Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 16:44, kvik@a-b.xyz wrote:
>> Unfortunately I can't help you with divergefs problem; I am
>> not familiar with the code and I don't feel like dissecting it
>> at the time.
>>
>> If I may instead shamelessly plug unionfs(4) for the task at hand:
>>     git://code.a-b.xyz/unionfs
>> or
>>     http://code.a-b.xyz/unionfs/snapshot/unionfs-master.tar.gz
>>
>>           ; ramfs
>>           ; bind /sys/src /mnt/src
>>           ; unionfs -m /sys/src /tmp /mnt/src
>>           ; @{cd /sys/src; mk install}
>
>
-- 
We need another plan