genodelabs/genode — Issue #54: Interfaces for file and directory services
Author: nfeske
Created: 2012-01-03 13:28:33+00:00
State: open

Until now, Genode features the ROM-session and block-session interfaces to access files but no file-system abstraction. The ROM-session interface is usable only for read-only files, normally to access boot modules. The block-session interface requires a client to implement a file system locally (e.g., by using the ffat library). However, the latter approach prevents multiple programs from working with one block device at the same time. To overcome this limitation, we need to provide a facility to multiplex block devices at file-system level.

During the work on the VFS in Noux, we identified a useful set of file-related functions, which could serve us well as starting point to design a file session interface. One particularly interesting aspect is the distinction of 'Directory_service' from the 'File_system' interface as done by Noux. Maybe this idea could be translated to the RPC interface in some way?