If you use Linux, you probably know about tarballs: archived collections of files, usually compressed using Gzip or Bzip2. SquashFS takes those to the next level.
The highlights for SquashFS:
- Threaded, so it can take advantage of modern multi-processor hardware.
- Duplicate file detection, optimizing net compression.
- Replicates all filesystem metadata (by default)
- Mountable archives, so they can integrate directly into your filesystem
- NFS-exportable. (Oh, and NFS rocks too!)
In combination with NFS and automount, SquashFS just makes my day.
I archive all kinds of stuff, and SquashFS generates near-optimal results, ensuring that the result consumes the minimum space on disc. (The result is read-only, mind you, but that's great for backups.)
With NFS and automount, I can list specific directories in my automount pool, over the network (NFS), and the archives are automatically visible.
# /etc/auto.squashfs.loop* -fstype=squashfs,ro,loop :/srv/autofs/&.squashfs
# /etc/auto.master/media/loop/sq /etc/auto.squashfs.loop --timeout=30 --ghost
# /etc/exports/media *.local(rw,async,crossmnt,no_subtree_check)
The result: from other workstations:
$ mount storage:/media /mnt/storage
$ ls /mnt/storage/loop/sq/archive
[ directory listing within the archive.squashfs ]
When I want to add a new directory, I just drop it in /srv/autofs on my storage machine - et voila, everyone in my network can peer into it, while disc consumption remains minimum.
Linux making my day as usual...
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