Jump to content

OverlayFS

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Abo Junghichi (talk | contribs) at 16:18, 28 November 2016 (Slackware uses this for live CD.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

OverlayFS
Developer(s)Miklos Szeredi, Open Source Community
Full nameOverlay File System
Features
File system
permissions
POSIX
Other
Supported
operating systems
Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD

In computing, OverlayFS, a filesystem service for Linux, implements a union mount for other file systems.

It was merged into the Linux kernel mainline in 2014, in kernel version 3.18.[1][2]

The main mechanics of OverlayFS relate to the merging of directory access when both filesystems present a directory for the same name. Otherwise, OverlayFS presents the object, if any, yielded by one or the other, with the "upper" filesystem taking precedence. Unlike some other overlay filesystems, the directory subtrees being merged by OverlayFS do not necessarily have to be from distinct filesystems.[3]

While most of Live CD linux distribution uses Aufs at November 2016, Slackware uses overlayfs for live CD.[4]

OverlayFS supports whiteouts and opaque directories in the upper filesystem to allow file and directory deletion.[3]

References

  1. ^ "OverlayFS commit to Linux".
  2. ^ "OverlayFS Proposed For The Linux 3.18 Kernel".
  3. ^ a b "OverlayFS documentation". kernel.org.
  4. ^ http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:liveslak