Re: [fuse-devel] Forking instead of Threading?

[Nikolaus R. <Nik...@ra...>]

Csaba Henk <csa...@cr...> writes:
> On 2009-08-15, Nikolaus Rath <Nik...@ra...> wrote:
>> I was wondering if it is in principle possible to have multiple requests
>> handled by multiple processes rather than threads, or if the design of
>> fuse forbids this. Can several processes communicate with the kernel
>> module in parallel? If so, how complex would the implementation be?
>
> This is perfectly viable. The fd to /dev/fuse will be inherited after
> forking so the kernel can know which fs is at the other end of the line.
> I don't know of any FUSE specific gotchas -- the hardness is IPC in
> general. There is no partial reading/writing on /dev/fuse and things
> like fragmented packets, so communication with it is straightforward.

That sounds very promising. How would I go about implementing this? I
just looked over the fuse sources, and it would almost seem that it is
as simple as

  1. Call fuse_setup_common() in the main process
  2. Fork childs
  3. Call fuse_loop() in each child

But there are probably some more gotchas...? Are there any issues when
fuse shuts down? Should I call fuse_teardown_common() in every process
or just in the main one?



Best,

   -Nikolaus

-- 
 »Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a Banana.«

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