FUSE Adds Initial Support For Statx, File Birth Times For File-Systems In User-Space

The Linux 6.6 FUSE driver code for enabling file-systems in user-space is adding support for STATX to the protocol as part of focusing on enabling file birth time "btime" support.

The statx system call was added to the Linux kernel several years ago for providing enhanced (extended) file information with additional stats to be exposed like file creation/birth times. Over time various Linux file-systems have integrated statx support as well as various user-space tools adding support for making use of statx information. Now for Linux 6.6, the FUSE infrastructure is established so file-systems in user-space can support statx / btime.

The FUSE updates that have been merged for Linux 6.6 include the statx infrastructure for the FUSE protocol and the initial btime support. The FUSE statx support for now supports just basic attributes and in a later kernel series may focus on supporting additional statx fields.

Separately, FUSE for Linux 6.6 also adds a new "FUSE_DIRECT_IO_RELAX" flag for allowing shared mmaps in the direct I/O / no cache mode, such as for helping to reduce guest memory use when dealing with VirtIOFS.

More details on these FUSE updates for Linux 6.6 via this pull that has already been merged by Linus Torvalds. FUSE continues to improve even with Torvalds' past criticism of FUSE.