File system unification using LatticeFS

LatticeFS is a namespace unification system designed to merge multiple source file systems into a single working file system. atticeFS can be used to merge multiple software package directories, work with multiple file systems as if they are one, and share a single storage medium among multiple machines. On a high level, LatticeFS takes as input an arbitrary number of file system paths, and mounts a new virtual drive that will appear to the user as a union of the input file systems. Of course, attempting to combine multiple file systems will inevitably be met with conflicts. Situations in which multiple input file systems contain files/directories with the same name will be common in large systems; which file/directory should the user be exposed to in this case? Previous work such as UnionFS solved the problem by giving each input file system a strict priority value, and when a conflict occurred, the file/directory with the highest priority was the one shown to the user. In LatticeFS, we have introduced a plug-in system in which different strategies for resolving conflicts can be easily swapped in and out; additionally, handlers for special file types can also be "plugged" into the system. This paper describes and evaluates all aspects of LatticeFS in detail.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Su, Yang, M. Eng. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stephen A. Ward.

• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/53145

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/53145