OverlayFS Proposed For The Linux 3.18 Kernel

[phoronix]

Phoronix: OverlayFS Proposed For The Linux 3.18 Kernel

After years of development, more than two dozen versions of the file-system, and real-world deployments in some Linux distributions, OverlayFS is trying again to get in the mainline Linux kernel...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTc5OTc

[kirk]

AUFS

AUFS was rejected years ago because it was a union filesystem. If union filesystems are now OK, AUFS should be merged instead of OverlayFS. It's much more feature complete (posix behavior, NFS exportable). The only reason anyone is using OverlayFS is that they thought it was going to get merged, and they really don't need it to do much other than run a liveCD. Before OverlayFS some distos started using Union Mounts, because they though it was going to get merged too. There's a reason Docker uses AUFS. Yes, Docker can use other things now like LVM snapshots, but that came about mainly due to the fact that AUFS isn't in the kernel, not that AUFS has problems.

[jaxxed]

AUFS was rejected years ago because it was a union filesystem. If union filesystems are now OK, AUFS should be merged instead of OverlayFS. It's much more feature complete (posix behavior, NFS exportable). The only reason anyone is using OverlayFS is that they thought it was going to get merged, and they really don't need it to do much other than run a liveCD. Before OverlayFS some distos started using Union Mounts, because they though it was going to get merged too. There's a reason Docker uses AUFS. Yes, Docker can use other things now like LVM snapshots, but that came about mainly due to the fact that AUFS isn't in the kernel, not that AUFS has problems.

A lot has happenned since the pure reliance on AUFS in Docker.

• Docker does not strictly rely on AUFS anymore (but uses it if it is available)
• There has been a lot of merging and re-factoring of various overlay file-systems since

[kirk]

A lot has happenned since the pure reliance on AUFS in Docker.

• Docker does not strictly rely on AUFS anymore (but uses it if it is available)
• There has been a lot of merging and re-factoring of various overlay file-systems since

I know, that why I said "Docker can use other things now like LVM snapshots, but that came about mainly due to the fact that AUFS isn't in the kernel, not that AUFS has problems."

[2devnull]

I just compiled aufs into 3.18 kernel. The option to export it via NFS in memuconfig is no longer there. Does anyone know how to do this now?