Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!tytso
From: tytso@athena.mit.edu (Theodore Y. Ts'o)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: File systems
Message-ID: <5933@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 27 Jun 88 16:22:44 GMT
References: <3964@lynx.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: tytso@athena.mit.edu (Theodore Y. Ts'o)
Distribution: na
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 16

In article <3964@lynx.UUCP> m5@lynx.UUCP (Mike McNally) writes:
>Is it true that the root file of a file system can be a regular file?
>It doesn't seem like mkfs can make such a thing, but I can't see anything
>about mount(2) that would disallow it.  If this is true, where's it
>documented?
>
>Mike McNally of Lynx Real-Time Systems

Well, for while at Athena we were running Todd Brunhoff's Remote File
System, which used zero length files as its mountpoints.  (Note: this
is NOT the RFS which most people commonly think of)  We eventually
switched over to NFS, but it CAN be done.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Theodore Ts'o				mit-eddie!mit-athena!tytso
3 Ames St., Cambridge, MA 02139		tytso@athena.mit.edu
			If it's for real, it isn't!