From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jun 23 11:07:01 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AD182106564A for ; Wed, 23 Jun 2010 11:07:01 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk) Received: from smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (gate6.infracaninophile.co.uk [IPv6:2001:8b0:151:1::1]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 177528FC23 for ; Wed, 23 Jun 2010 11:07:00 +0000 (UTC) Received: from seedling.black-earth.co.uk (seedling.black-earth.co.uk [81.187.76.163]) (authenticated bits=0) by smtp.infracaninophile.co.uk (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id o5NB6n3q045948 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-CAMELLIA256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:06:49 +0100 (BST) (envelope-from m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk) Message-ID: <4C21EAC8.50402@infracaninophile.co.uk> Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:06:48 +0100 From: Matthew Seaman Organization: Infracaninophile User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.1.10) Gecko/20100512 Thunderbird/3.0.5 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Aiza References: <4C21E163.70003@comclark.com> In-Reply-To: <4C21E163.70003@comclark.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 1.0.1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: clamav-milter 0.96.1 at lucid-nonsense.infracaninophile.co.uk X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Spam-Status: No, score=2.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_60,DKIM_ADSP_ALL, SPF_FAIL autolearn=no version=3.3.1 X-Spam-Level: ** X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.1 (2010-03-16) on lucid-nonsense.infracaninophile.co.uk Cc: "questions@freebsd.org" Subject: Re: sparse image X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 11:07:01 -0000 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 23/06/2010 11:26:43, Aiza wrote: > Is there an equivalent of the MAC sparseimage on FreeBSD? A filesystem image that only takes up as much space as the total of all the files within it? Not exactly. There are many archiving formats -- dump, tar, cpio, etc. etc. which fulfill the space usage criterion, but they aren't filesystem images in the sense that you could mount them on your system. Probably the closest thing is to create a .iso image using something like growisofs(1m) (from the sysutils/dvd+rw-tools port), but while you can mount a .iso as a file-backed metadevice you can't mount it read/write. There is the Union FS type -- see mount_unionfs(8) -- where the overlay layer just contains the changed files made since the filesystem was mounted. Which is sort-of what you're asking about, but not quite the same thing. Cheers, Matthew - -- Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil. 7 Priory Courtyard Flat 3 PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Ramsgate JID: matthew@infracaninophile.co.uk Kent, CT11 9PW -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.14 (Darwin) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAkwh6sgACgkQ8Mjk52CukIwnygCff0nTR8a2JVstLTO02f3Fm48w IMAAnisQv09vAHlgaTRXvIKRgvNeh4Ga =ggfk -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----