tree 13f2cb344f8871edd30dc15007534405197d8480
parent 2f65168de7d68a5795e945e781d85b313bdc97b9
author Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com> 1169667352 -0700
committer Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de> 1170873434 -0800

sysfs: Shadow directory support

The problem.  When implementing a network namespace I need to be able
to have multiple network devices with the same name.  Currently this
is a problem for /sys/class/net/*. 

What I want is a separate /sys/class/net directory in sysfs for each
network namespace, and I want to name each of them /sys/class/net.

I looked and the VFS actually allows that.  All that is needed is
for /sys/class/net to implement a follow link method to redirect
lookups to the real directory you want. 

Implementing a follow link method that is sensitive to the current
network namespace turns out to be 3 lines of code so it looks like a
clean approach.  Modifying sysfs so it doesn't get in my was is a bit
trickier. 

I am calling the concept of multiple directories all at the same path
in the filesystem shadow directories.  With the directory entry really
at that location the shadow master. 

The following patch modifies sysfs so it can handle a directory
structure slightly different from the kobject tree so I can implement
the shadow directories for handling /sys/class/net/.

Signed-off-by: Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Maneesh Soni <maneesh@in.ibm.com>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>