29 Sep
2004
29 Sep
'04
1:13 p.m.
Hello,
RosFS
RosFS is a small service running on system initialization by default
that indexes files, folders, users, devices, and network resources can
hold metadata via MySQL, sleepycat DB, TCL, Apache, and Perl; which will
all be embedded within the service itself. RosFS will hold encrypted
Sounds like quite much work, what you are proposing.
A few problems I know that will arise in developing
such a project are:
1) Size
2) Security
3) Where to keep the files on the system
May be somewhere in %SystemRoot%\IndexData\ if you want
to use a DB like MySQL?
However MS uses another approach. It stores this info in the hidden
"X:\System Volume Information\" folders separated by drive.
It seems, they also use the NTFS 5-feature of change logs to update the
indexes. What about trying to do it the same way?
This would have the advantage of avoiding synchronisation problems.
For example: Imagine one removes a drive from the system, and puts
it in another computer. If the metadata is located directly on the drive,
you don't have to update all index information. Or imagine, you have
got two installations of ROS on one system. This way both can share
the same indexes.
4) The RosFS query language will be trouble to write
and maintain
depending on if a user uses such Databases like ORACLE, MySQL, MSSQL,
etc.
Well, this language remembers me of the OQL language used in projects like
Castor or Hibernate. Just another layer on top of SQL to become independent
from the actual database used.
Did you know, WMI also uses a SQL dialect to query services, drive inforation,
and whatever else...? May be better to write a WMI implementation for ROS
instead of re-inventing the wheel.
5) Explorer Integration - Will Explorer.exe need to be
rewritten to
allow the addition of Metadata structures, etc.
Not rewritten - maybe extended to be able to query the additional information.
6) Web integration - Perl, PHP, TCL, CGI, ISAPI???
Please send me comments and concerns about the RosFS
project.
Regards,
Martin