namei.h query

[Matthew Dillon]

:Hi all:
:
:Here is a newbie query regarding the code in namei.h
:
:In DragonflyBSD, sys/sys/namei.h
:
:...
:
:What is the advantage of the DragonflyBSD approach in this case ?
:
:thanks
:Saifi.

    DragonFly uses a completely different path lookup mechanism,
    mostly embodied by sys/nlookup.h, kern/vfs_nlookup.c, and
    kern/vfs_cache.c.

    The DragonFly API is far simpler then the original BSD API (which
    FreeBSD still uses).  FreeBSD did do a cleanup pass to remove
    obsolete flags a few years ago but they still appear to be dependent
    on the throw-away nature of their namecache.

    The DragonFly implementation uses more deterministic structures in
    its name cache and also tracks path components by (mountpt, vnode)
    instead of just by (vnode).  The biggest real effect this has is
    that DragonFly does not have the synthesize vnode aliases for things
    like NULLFS mounts... it can pass the actual vnode straight through
    and replace only the (mountpt) portion of the resolution.  This
    allow completely arbitrary mount recursion and unlimited nullfs
    mounts as well as separate mount flags (e.g. a read-only nullfs mount
    is possible) which cannot be told apart from base mounts from the point
    of view of the rest of the system.

					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon at backplane.com>