1Fuse(3) User Contributed Perl Documentation Fuse(3)
2
3
4
6 Fuse - write filesystems in Perl using FUSE
7
9 use Fuse;
10 my ($mountpoint) = "";
11 $mountpoint = shift(@ARGV) if @ARGV;
12 Fuse::main(mountpoint=>$mountpoint, getattr=>"main::my_getattr", getdir=>"main::my_getdir", ...);
13
15 This lets you implement filesystems in perl, through the FUSE
16 (Filesystem in USErspace) kernel/lib interface.
17
18 FUSE expects you to implement callbacks for the various functions.
19
20 In the following definitions, "errno" can be 0 (for a success),
21 -EINVAL, -ENOENT, -EONFIRE, any integer less than 1 really.
22
23 You can import standard error constants by saying something like "use
24 POSIX qw(EDOTDOT ENOANO);".
25
26 Every constant you need (file types, open() flags, error values, etc)
27 can be imported either from POSIX or from Fcntl, often both. See their
28 respective documentations, for more information.
29
30 EXPORTED SYMBOLS
31 None by default.
32
33 You can request all exportable symbols by using the tag ":all".
34
35 You can request the extended attribute symbols by using the tag
36 ":xattr". This will export XATTR_CREATE and XATTR_REPLACE.
37
38 FUNCTIONS
39 Fuse::main
40
41 Takes arguments in the form of hash key=>value pairs. There are many
42 valid keys. Most of them correspond with names of callback functions,
43 as described in section 'FUNCTIONS YOUR FILESYSTEM MAY IMPLEMENT'. A
44 few special keys also exist:
45
46 debug => boolean
47 This turns FUSE call tracing on and off. Default is 0 (which means
48 off).
49
50 mountpoint => string
51 The point at which to mount this filesystem. There is no default, you
52 must specify this. An example would be '/mnt'.
53
54 mountopts => string
55 This is a comma separated list of mount options to pass to the FUSE
56 kernel module.
57
58 At present, it allows the specification of the allow_other argument
59 when mounting the new FUSE filesystem. To use this, you will also need
60 'user_allow_other' in /etc/fuse.conf as per the FUSE documention
61
62 mountopts => "allow_other" or
63 mountopts => ""
64
65 threaded => boolean
66 This turns FUSE multithreading on and off. The default is 0, meaning
67 your FUSE script will run in single-threaded mode. Note that single-
68 threaded mode also means that you will not have to worry about
69 reentrancy, though you will have to worry about recursive lookups. In
70 single-threaded mode, FUSE holds a global lock on your filesystem, and
71 will wait for one callback to return before calling another. This can
72 lead to deadlocks, if your script makes any attempt to access files or
73 directories in the filesystem it is providing. (This includes calling
74 stat() on the mount-point, statfs() calls from the 'df' command, and
75 so on and so forth.) It is worth paying a little attention and being
76 careful about this.
77
78 Enabling multithreading will cause FUSE to make multiple simultaneous
79 calls into the various callback functions of your perl script. If you
80 enable threaded mode, you can enjoy all the parallel execution and
81 interactive response benefits of threads, and you get to enjoy all the
82 benefits of race conditions and locking bugs, too. Please also ensure
83 any other perl modules you're using are also thread-safe.
84
85 (If enabled, this option will cause a warning if your perl interpreter
86 was not built with USE_ITHREADS, or if you have failed to use threads
87 or threads::shared.)
88
89 nullpath_ok => boolean
90 This flag tells Fuse to not pass paths for functions that operate on
91 file or directory handles. This will yield empty path parameters for
92 functions including read, write, flush, release, fsync, readdir,
93 releasedir, fsyncdir, truncate, fgetattr and lock. If you use this,
94 you must return file/directory handles from open, opendir and create.
95 Default is 0 (off). Only effective on Fuse 2.8 and up; with earlier
96 versions, this does nothing.
97
98 utimens_as_array => boolean
99 This flag causes timestamps passed via the utimens() call to be passed
100 as arrays containing the time in seconds, and a second value
101 containing the number of nanoseconds, instead of a floating point
102 value. This allows for more precise times, as the normal floating
103 point type used by Perl (double) loses accuracy starting at about
104 tenths of a microsecond.
105
106 nopath => boolean
107 Flag indicating that the path need not be calculated for the following
108 operations:
109
110 read, write, flush, release, fsync, readdir, releasedir, fsyncdir,
111 ftruncate, fgetattr, lock, ioctl and poll
112
113 Closely related to nullpath_ok, but if this flag is set then the path
114 will not be calculated even if the file wasn't unlinked. However the
115 path can still be defined if it needs to be calculated for some other
116 reason.
117
118 Only effective on Fuse 2.9 and up.
119
120 utime_omit_ok => boolean
121 Flag indicating that the filesystem accepts special UTIME_NOW and
122 UTIME_OMIT values in its "utimens" operation.
123
124 If you wish to use these constants, make sure to include the ':utime'
125 flag when including the Fuse module, or the ':all' flag.
126
127 Only effective on Fuse 2.9 and up.
128
129 Fuse::fuse_get_context
130
131 use Fuse "fuse_get_context";
132 my $caller_uid = fuse_get_context()->{"uid"};
133 my $caller_gid = fuse_get_context()->{"gid"};
134 my $caller_pid = fuse_get_context()->{"pid"};
135
136 Access context information about the current Fuse operation.
137
138 Fuse::fuse_version
139
140 Indicates the Fuse version in use; more accurately, indicates the
141 version of the Fuse API in use at build time. If called in scalar
142 context, the version will be returned as a decimal value; i.e., for
143 Fuse API v2.6, will return "2.6". If called in array context, an array
144 will be returned, containing the major, minor and micro version numbers
145 of the Fuse API it was built against.
146
147 Fuse::fuse_buf_size
148
149 Computes the total size of a buffer vector. Applicable for "read_buf"
150 and "write_buf" operations.
151
152 Fuse::fuse_buf_copy
153
154 Copies data from one buffer vector to another. Primarily useful if a
155 buffer vector contains multiple, fragmented chunks or if it contains an
156 FD buffer instead of a memory buffer. Applicable for "write_buf".
157
158 Fuse::notify_poll
159
160 Only available if the Fuse module is built against libfuse 2.8 or
161 later. Use fuse_version() to determine if this is the case. Calling
162 this function with a pollhandle argument (as provided to the "poll"
163 operation implementation) will send a notification to the caller
164 poll()ing for I/O operation availability. If more than one pollhandle
165 is provided for the same filehandle, only use the latest; you *can*
166 send notifications to them all, but it is unnecessary and decreases
167 performance.
168
169 ONLY supply poll handles fed to you through "poll" to this function.
170 Due to thread safety requirements, we can't currently package the
171 pointer up in an object the way we'd like to to prevent this situation,
172 but your filesystem server program may segfault, or worse, if you feed
173 things to this function which it is not supposed to receive. If you do
174 anyway, we take no responsibility for whatever Bad Things(tm) may
175 happen.
176
177 Fuse::pollhandle_destroy
178
179 Only available if the Fuse module is built against libfuse 2.8 or
180 later. Use fuse_version() to determine if this is the case. This
181 function destroys a poll handle (fed to your program through "poll").
182 When you are done with a poll handle, either because it has been
183 replaced, or because a notification has been sent to it, pass it to
184 this function to dispose of it safely.
185
186 ONLY supply poll handles fed to you through "poll" to this function.
187 Due to thread safety requirements, we can't currently package the
188 pointer up in an object the way we'd like to to prevent this situation,
189 but your filesystem server program may segfault, or worse, if you feed
190 things to this function which it is not supposed to receive. If you do
191 anyway, we take no responsibility for whatever Bad Things(tm) may
192 happen.
193
194 FUNCTIONS YOUR FILESYSTEM MAY IMPLEMENT
195 getattr
196
197 Arguments: filename.
198
199 Returns a list, very similar to the 'stat' function (see perlfunc). On
200 error, simply return a single numeric scalar value (e.g. "return
201 -ENOENT();").
202
203 FIXME: the "ino" field is currently ignored. I tried setting it to 0
204 in an example script, which consistently caused segfaults.
205
206 Fields (the following was stolen from perlfunc(1) with apologies):
207
208 ($dev,$ino,$mode,$nlink,$uid,$gid,$rdev,$size,
209 $atime,$mtime,$ctime,$blksize,$blocks)
210 = getattr($filename);
211
212 Here are the meaning of the fields:
213
214 0 dev device number of filesystem
215 1 ino inode number
216 2 mode file mode (type and permissions)
217 3 nlink number of (hard) links to the file
218 4 uid numeric user ID of file's owner
219 5 gid numeric group ID of file's owner
220 6 rdev the device identifier (special files only)
221 7 size total size of file, in bytes
222 8 atime last access time in seconds since the epoch
223 9 mtime last modify time in seconds since the epoch
224 10 ctime inode change time (NOT creation time!) in seconds
225 since the epoch
226 11 blksize preferred block size for file system I/O
227 12 blocks actual number of blocks allocated
228
229 (The epoch was at 00:00 January 1, 1970 GMT.)
230
231 If you wish to provide sub-second precision timestamps, they may be
232 passed either as the fractional part of a floating-point value, or as a
233 two-element array, passed as an array ref, with the first element
234 containing the number of seconds since the epoch, and the second
235 containing the number of nanoseconds. This provides complete time
236 precision, as a floating point number starts losing precision at about
237 a tenth of a microsecond. So if you really care about that sort of
238 thing...
239
240 readlink
241
242 Arguments: link pathname.
243
244 Returns a scalar: either a numeric constant, or a text string.
245
246 This is called when dereferencing symbolic links, to learn the target.
247
248 example rv: return "/proc/self/fd/stdin";
249
250 getdir
251
252 Arguments: Containing directory name.
253
254 Returns a list: 0 or more text strings (the filenames), followed by a
255 numeric errno (usually 0).
256
257 This is used to obtain directory listings. It's opendir(), readdir(),
258 filldir() and closedir() all in one call.
259
260 example rv: return ('.', 'a', 'b', 0);
261
262 mknod
263
264 Arguments: Filename, numeric modes, numeric device
265
266 Returns an errno (0 upon success, as usual).
267
268 This function is called for all non-directory, non-symlink nodes, not
269 just devices.
270
271 mkdir
272
273 Arguments: New directory pathname, numeric modes.
274
275 Returns an errno.
276
277 Called to create a directory.
278
279 unlink
280
281 Arguments: Filename.
282
283 Returns an errno.
284
285 Called to remove a file, device, or symlink.
286
287 rmdir
288
289 Arguments: Pathname.
290
291 Returns an errno.
292
293 Called to remove a directory.
294
295 symlink
296
297 Arguments: Existing filename, symlink name.
298
299 Returns an errno.
300
301 Called to create a symbolic link.
302
303 rename
304
305 Arguments: old filename, new filename.
306
307 Returns an errno.
308
309 Called to rename a file, and/or move a file from one directory to
310 another.
311
312 link
313
314 Arguments: Existing filename, hardlink name.
315
316 Returns an errno.
317
318 Called to create hard links.
319
320 chmod
321
322 Arguments: Pathname, numeric modes.
323
324 Returns an errno.
325
326 Called to change permissions on a file/directory/device/symlink.
327
328 chown
329
330 Arguments: Pathname, numeric uid, numeric gid.
331
332 Returns an errno.
333
334 Called to change ownership of a file/directory/device/symlink.
335
336 truncate
337
338 Arguments: Pathname, numeric offset.
339
340 Returns an errno.
341
342 Called to truncate a file, at the given offset.
343
344 utime
345
346 Arguments: Pathname, numeric actime, numeric modtime.
347
348 Returns an errno.
349
350 Called to change access/modification times for a
351 file/directory/device/symlink.
352
353 open
354
355 Arguments: Pathname, numeric flags (which is an OR-ing of stuff like
356 O_RDONLY and O_SYNC, constants you can import from POSIX), fileinfo
357 hash reference.
358
359 Returns an errno, a file handle (optional).
360
361 No creation, or truncation flags (O_CREAT, O_EXCL, O_TRUNC) will be
362 passed to open(). The fileinfo hash reference contains flags from the
363 Fuse open call which may be modified by the module. The only fields
364 presently supported are:
365 direct_io (version 2.4 onwards)
366 keep_cache (version 2.4 onwards)
367 nonseekable (version 2.8 onwards) Your open() method needs only check
368 if the operation is permitted for the given flags, and return 0 for
369 success. Optionally a file handle may be returned, which will be
370 passed to subsequent read, write, flush, fsync and release calls.
371
372 read
373
374 Arguments: Pathname, numeric requested size, numeric offset, file
375 handle
376
377 Returns a numeric errno, or a string scalar with up to $requestedsize
378 bytes of data.
379
380 Called in an attempt to fetch a portion of the file.
381
382 write
383
384 Arguments: Pathname, scalar buffer, numeric offset, file handle. You
385 can use length($buffer) to find the buffersize. Returns
386 length($buffer) if successful (number of bytes written).
387
388 Called in an attempt to write (or overwrite) a portion of the file. Be
389 prepared because $buffer could contain random binary data with NULs and
390 all sorts of other wonderful stuff.
391
392 statfs
393
394 Arguments: none
395
396 Returns any of the following:
397
398 -ENOANO()
399
400 or
401
402 $namelen, $files, $files_free, $blocks, $blocks_avail, $blocksize
403
404 or
405
406 -ENOANO(), $namelen, $files, $files_free, $blocks, $blocks_avail,
407 $blocksize
408
409 flush
410
411 Arguments: Pathname, file handle
412
413 Returns an errno or 0 on success.
414
415 Called to synchronise any cached data. This is called before the file
416 is closed. It may be called multiple times before a file is closed.
417
418 release
419
420 Arguments: Pathname, numeric flags passed to open, file handle,
421 flock_release flag (when built against FUSE 2.9 or later), lock owner
422 ID (when built against FUSE 2.9 or later)
423
424 Returns an errno or 0 on success.
425
426 Called to indicate that there are no more references to the file.
427 Called once for every file with the same pathname and flags as were
428 passed to open.
429
430 fsync
431
432 Arguments: Pathname, numeric flags
433
434 Returns an errno or 0 on success.
435
436 Called to synchronise the file's contents. If flags is non-zero, only
437 synchronise the user data. Otherwise synchronise the user and meta
438 data.
439
440 setxattr
441
442 Arguments: Pathname, extended attribute's name, extended attribute's
443 value, numeric flags (which is an OR-ing of XATTR_CREATE and
444 XATTR_REPLACE
445
446 Returns an errno or 0 on success.
447
448 Called to set the value of the named extended attribute.
449
450 If you wish to reject setting of a particular form of extended
451 attribute name (e.g.: regexps matching user\..* or security\..*), then
452 return - EOPNOTSUPP.
453
454 If flags is set to XATTR_CREATE and the extended attribute already
455 exists, this should fail with - EEXIST. If flags is set to
456 XATTR_REPLACE and the extended attribute doesn't exist, this should
457 fail with - ENOATTR.
458
459 XATTR_CREATE and XATTR_REPLACE are provided by this module, but not
460 exported by default. To import them:
461
462 use Fuse ':xattr';
463
464 or:
465
466 use Fuse ':all';
467
468 getxattr
469
470 Arguments: Pathname, extended attribute's name
471
472 Returns an errno, 0 if there was no value, or the extended attribute's
473 value.
474
475 Called to get the value of the named extended attribute.
476
477 listxattr
478
479 Arguments: Pathname
480
481 Returns a list: 0 or more text strings (the extended attribute names),
482 followed by a numeric errno (usually 0).
483
484 removexattr
485
486 Arguments: Pathname, extended attribute's name
487
488 Returns an errno or 0 on success.
489
490 Removes the named extended attribute (if present) from a file.
491
492 opendir
493
494 Arguments: Pathname of a directory Returns an errno, and a directory
495 handle (optional)
496
497 Called when opening a directory for reading. If special handling is
498 required to open a directory, this operation can be implemented to
499 handle that.
500
501 readdir
502
503 Arguments: Pathname of a directory, numeric offset, (optional)
504 directory handle
505
506 Returns a list of 0 or more entries, followed by a numeric errno
507 (usually 0). The entries can be simple strings (filenames), or arrays
508 containing an offset number, the filename, and optionally an array ref
509 containing the stat values (as would be returned from getattr()).
510
511 This is used to read entries from a directory. It can be used to return
512 just entry names like getdir(), or can get a segment of the available
513 entries, which requires using array refs and the 2- or 3-item form,
514 with offset values starting from 1. If you wish to return the
515 parameters to fill each entry's struct stat, but do not wish to do
516 partial entry lists/entry counting, set the first element of each array
517 to 0 always.
518
519 Note that if this call is implemented, it overrides getdir() ALWAYS.
520
521 releasedir
522
523 Arguments: Pathname of a directory, (optional) directory handle
524
525 Returns an errno or 0 on success
526
527 Called when there are no more references to an opened directory. Called
528 once for each pathname or handle passed to opendir(). Similar to
529 release(), but for directories. Accepts a return value, but like
530 release(), the response code will not propagate to any corresponding
531 closedir() calls.
532
533 fsyncdir
534
535 Arguments: Pathname of a directory, numeric flags, (optional) directory
536 handle
537
538 Returns an errno or 0 on success.
539
540 Called to synchronize any changes to a directory's contents. If flag is
541 non-zero, only synchronize user data, otherwise synchronize user data
542 and metadata.
543
544 init
545
546 Arguments: None.
547
548 Returns (optionally) an SV to be passed as private_data via
549 fuse_get_context().
550
551 destroy
552
553 Arguments: (optional) private data SV returned from init(), if any.
554
555 Returns nothing.
556
557 access
558
559 Arguments: Pathname, access mode flags
560
561 Returns an errno or 0 on success.
562
563 Determine if the user attempting to access the indicated file has
564 access to perform the requested actions. The user ID can be determined
565 by calling fuse_get_context(). See access(2) for more information.
566
567 create
568
569 Arguments: Pathname, create mask, open mode flags
570
571 Returns errno or 0 on success, and (optional) file handle.
572
573 Create a file with the path indicated, then open a handle for reading
574 and/or writing with the supplied mode flags. Can also return a file
575 handle like open() as part of the call.
576
577 ftruncate
578
579 Arguments: Pathname, numeric offset, (optional) file handle
580
581 Returns errno or 0 on success
582
583 Like truncate(), but on an opened file.
584
585 fgetattr
586
587 Arguments: Pathname, (optional) file handle
588
589 Returns a list, very similar to the 'stat' function (see perlfunc). On
590 error, simply return a single numeric scalar value (e.g. "return
591 -ENOENT();").
592
593 Like getattr(), but on an opened file.
594
595 lock
596
597 Arguments: Pathname, numeric command code, hashref containing lock
598 parameters, (optional) file handle
599
600 Returns errno or 0 on success
601
602 Used to lock or unlock regions of a file. Locking is handled locally,
603 but this allows (especially for networked file systems) for protocol-
604 level locking semantics to also be employed, if any are available.
605
606 See the Fuse documentation for more explanation of lock(). The needed
607 symbols for the lock constants can be obtained by importing Fcntl.
608
609 utimens
610
611 Arguments: Pathname, last accessed time, last modified time
612
613 Returns errno or 0 on success
614
615 Like utime(), but allows time resolution down to the nanosecond. By
616 default, times are passed as "numeric" (internally these are typically
617 represented as "double"), so the sub-second portion is represented as
618 fractions of a second. If you want times passed as arrays instead of
619 floating point values, for higher precision, you should pass the
620 "utimens_as_array" option to "Fuse::main".
621
622 Note that if this call is implemented, it overrides utime() ALWAYS.
623
624 bmap
625
626 Arguments: Pathname, numeric blocksize, numeric block number
627
628 Returns errno or 0 on success, and physical block number if successful
629
630 Used to map a block number offset in a file to the physical block
631 offset on the block device backing the file system. This is intended
632 for filesystems that are stored on an actual block device, with the
633 'blkdev' option passed.
634
635 ioctl
636
637 Arguments: Pathname, ioctl command code, flags, data if ioctl op is a
638 write, (optional) file handle
639
640 Returns errno or 0 on success, and data if ioctl op is a read
641
642 Used to handle ioctl() operations on files. See ioctl(2) for more
643 information on the fine details of ioctl operation numbers. May need to
644 h2ph system headers to get the necessary macros; keep in mind the
645 macros are highly OS-dependent.
646
647 Keep in mind that read and write are from the client perspective, so
648 read from our end means data is going *out*, and write means data is
649 coming *in*. It can be slightly confusing.
650
651 poll
652
653 Arguments: Pathname, poll handle ID (or undef if none), event mask,
654 (optional) file handle
655
656 Returns errno or 0 on success, and updated event mask on success
657
658 Used to handle poll() operations on files. See poll(2) to learn more
659 about event polling. Use IO::Poll to get the POLLIN, POLLOUT, and other
660 symbols to describe the events which can happen on the filehandle. Save
661 the poll handle ID to be passed to "notify_poll" and
662 "pollhandle_destroy" functions, if it is not undef. Threading will
663 likely be necessary for this operation to work.
664
665 There is not an "out of band" data transfer channel provided as part of
666 FUSE, so POLLPRI/POLLRDBAND/POLLWRBAND won't work.
667
668 Poll handle is currently a read-only scalar; we are investigating a way
669 to make this an object instead.
670
671 write_buf
672
673 Arguments: Pathname, offset, buffer vector, (optional) file handle.
674
675 Write contents of buffer to an open file.
676
677 Similar to the "write" method, but data is supplied in a generic
678 buffer. Use fuse_buf_copy() to transfer data to the destination if
679 necessary.
680
681 read_buf
682
683 Arguments: Pathname, size, offset, buffer vector, (optional) file
684 handle.
685
686 Store data from an open file in a buffer.
687
688 Similar to the "read" method, but data is stored and returned in a
689 generic buffer.
690
691 No actual copying of data has to take place, the source file descriptor
692 may simply be placed in the 'fd' member of the buffer access hash (and
693 the 'flags' member OR'd with FUSE_BUF_IS_FD) for later retrieval.
694
695 Also, if the FUSE_BUF_FD_SEEK constant is OR'd with 'flags', the 'pos'
696 member should contain the offset (in bytes) to seek to in the file
697 descriptor.
698
699 If data is to be read, the read data should be placed in the 'mem'
700 member of the buffer access hash, and the 'size' member should be
701 updated if less data was read than requested.
702
703 flock
704
705 Arguments: pathname, (optional) file handle, unique lock owner ID,
706 operation ID
707
708 Perform BSD-style file locking operations.
709
710 Operation ID will be one of LOCK_SH, LOCK_EX or LOCK_UN. Non-blocking
711 lock requests will be indicated by having LOCK_NB OR'd into the value.
712
713 For more information, see the flock(2) manpage. For the lock symbols,
714 do:
715
716 use Fcntl qw(flock);
717
718 Locking is handled locally, but this allows (especially for networked
719 file systems) for protocol-level locking semantics to also be employed,
720 if any are available.
721
722 fallocate
723
724 Arguments: pathname, (optional) file handle, mode, offset, length
725
726 Allocates space for an open file.
727
728 This function ensures that required space is allocated for specified
729 file. If this function returns success then any subsequent write
730 request to specified range is guaranteed not to fail because of lack of
731 space on the file system media.
732
734 There are a few example scripts in the examples/ subdirectory. These
735 are:
736
737 example.pl
738
739 A simple "Hello world" type of script
740
741 loopback.pl
742
743 A filesystem loopback-device. like fusexmp from the main FUSE dist,
744 it simply recurses file operations into the real filesystem. Unlike
745 fusexmp, it only re-shares files under the /tmp/test directory.
746
747 rmount.pl
748
749 An NFS-workalike which tunnels through SSH. It requires an account
750 on some ssh server (obviously), with public-key authentication enabled.
751 (if you have to type in a password, you don't have this. man ssh_keygen.).
752 Copy rmount_remote.pl to your home directory on the remote machine
753 and make it executable. Then create a mountpoint subdir somewhere local,
754 and run the example script: ./rmount.pl host /remote/dir /local/dir
755
756 rmount_remote.pl
757
758 A ripoff of loopback.pl meant to be used as a backend for rmount.pl.
759
761 Mark Glines, <mark@glines.org>
762
764 perl, the FUSE documentation.
765
766
767
768perl v5.32.1 2021-01-27 Fuse(3)