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authorLinus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org>2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700
committerLinus Torvalds <torvalds@ppc970.osdl.org>2005-04-16 15:20:36 -0700
commit1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2 (patch)
tree0bba044c4ce775e45a88a51686b5d9f90697ea9d /Documentation/filesystems/cramfs.txt
downloadlinux-1da177e4c3f41524e886b7f1b8a0c1fc7321cac2.tar.gz
Linux-2.6.12-rc2
Initial git repository build. I'm not bothering with the full history,
even though we have it. We can create a separate "historical" git
archive of that later if we want to, and in the meantime it's about
3.2GB when imported into git - space that would just make the early
git days unnecessarily complicated, when we don't have a lot of good
infrastructure for it.

Let it rip!
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+
+	Cramfs - cram a filesystem onto a small ROM
+
+cramfs is designed to be simple and small, and to compress things well. 
+
+It uses the zlib routines to compress a file one page at a time, and
+allows random page access.  The meta-data is not compressed, but is
+expressed in a very terse representation to make it use much less
+diskspace than traditional filesystems. 
+
+You can't write to a cramfs filesystem (making it compressible and
+compact also makes it _very_ hard to update on-the-fly), so you have to
+create the disk image with the "mkcramfs" utility.
+
+
+Usage Notes
+-----------
+
+File sizes are limited to less than 16MB.
+
+Maximum filesystem size is a little over 256MB.  (The last file on the
+filesystem is allowed to extend past 256MB.)
+
+Only the low 8 bits of gid are stored.  The current version of
+mkcramfs simply truncates to 8 bits, which is a potential security
+issue.
+
+Hard links are supported, but hard linked files
+will still have a link count of 1 in the cramfs image.
+
+Cramfs directories have no `.' or `..' entries.  Directories (like
+every other file on cramfs) always have a link count of 1.  (There's
+no need to use -noleaf in `find', btw.)
+
+No timestamps are stored in a cramfs, so these default to the epoch
+(1970 GMT).  Recently-accessed files may have updated timestamps, but
+the update lasts only as long as the inode is cached in memory, after
+which the timestamp reverts to 1970, i.e. moves backwards in time.
+
+Currently, cramfs must be written and read with architectures of the
+same endianness, and can be read only by kernels with PAGE_CACHE_SIZE
+== 4096.  At least the latter of these is a bug, but it hasn't been
+decided what the best fix is.  For the moment if you have larger pages
+you can just change the #define in mkcramfs.c, so long as you don't
+mind the filesystem becoming unreadable to future kernels.
+
+
+For /usr/share/magic
+--------------------
+
+0	ulelong	0x28cd3d45	Linux cramfs offset 0
+>4	ulelong	x		size %d
+>8	ulelong	x		flags 0x%x
+>12	ulelong	x		future 0x%x
+>16	string	>\0		signature "%.16s"
+>32	ulelong	x		fsid.crc 0x%x
+>36	ulelong	x		fsid.edition %d
+>40	ulelong	x		fsid.blocks %d
+>44	ulelong	x		fsid.files %d
+>48	string	>\0		name "%.16s"
+512	ulelong	0x28cd3d45	Linux cramfs offset 512
+>516	ulelong	x		size %d
+>520	ulelong	x		flags 0x%x
+>524	ulelong	x		future 0x%x
+>528	string	>\0		signature "%.16s"
+>544	ulelong	x		fsid.crc 0x%x
+>548	ulelong	x		fsid.edition %d
+>552	ulelong	x		fsid.blocks %d
+>556	ulelong	x		fsid.files %d
+>560	string	>\0		name "%.16s"
+
+
+Hacker Notes
+------------
+
+See fs/cramfs/README for filesystem layout and implementation notes.