| General Information |
| =================== |
| |
| FUSE (Filesystem in USErspace) is a simple interface for userspace |
| programs to export a virtual filesystem to the linux kernel. FUSE |
| also aims to provide a secure method for non privileged users to |
| create and mount their own filesystem implementations. |
| |
| You can download the source code releases from |
| |
| http://sourceforge.net/projects/avf |
| |
| or alternatively you can use CVS to get the very latest development |
| version by setting the cvsroot to |
| |
| :pserver:anonymous@cvs.avf.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/avf |
| |
| and checking out the 'fuse' module. |
| |
| Installation |
| ============ |
| |
| See the file 'INSTALL' |
| |
| IMPORTANT NOTE: If you run a system with untrusted users, installing |
| this program is not recommended, as it could be used to breach |
| security (see the 'Security' section for explanation). |
| |
| How To Use |
| ========== |
| |
| FUSE is made up of three main parts: |
| |
| - A kernel filesystem module (kernel/fuse.o) |
| |
| - A userspace library (lib/libfuse.a) |
| |
| - A mount/unmount program (util/fusermount) |
| |
| |
| Here's how to create your very own virtual filesystem in five easy |
| steps (after installing FUSE): |
| |
| 1) Edit the file example/fusexmp.c to do whatever you want... |
| |
| 2) Build the fusexmp program |
| |
| 3) run 'example/fusexmp /mnt/whatever -d' |
| |
| 4) ls -al /mnt/whatever |
| |
| 5) Be glad |
| |
| If it doesn't work out, please ask! Also see the file 'include/fuse.h' for |
| detailed documentation of the library interface. |
| |
| The fusermount program accepts a couple of additional options (see |
| 'fusermount -h'). You can add these options after a '--' like this: |
| |
| example/fusexmp /mnt/whatever -d -- -l |
| |
| Security |
| ======== |
| |
| If you run 'make install', the fusermount program is installed |
| set-user-id to root. This is done to allow normal users to mount |
| their own filesystem implementations. |
| |
| There must however be some limitations, in order to prevent Bad User from |
| doing nasty things. Currently those limitations are: |
| |
| - The user can only mount on a mountpoint, for which it has write |
| permission |
| |
| - The mountpoint is not a sticky directory which isn't owned by the |
| user (like /tmp usually is) |
| |
| - No other user (including root) can access the contents of the mounted |
| filesystem. |