summaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/Documentation/filesystems/cramfs.txt
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/filesystems/cramfs.txt')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/filesystems/cramfs.txt76
1 files changed, 76 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/cramfs.txt b/Documentation/filesystems/cramfs.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..31f53f0ab957
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/filesystems/cramfs.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+
+ Cramfs - cram a filesystem onto a small ROM
+
+cramfs is designed to be simple and small, and to compress things well.
+
+It uses the zlib routines to compress a file one page at a time, and
+allows random page access. The meta-data is not compressed, but is
+expressed in a very terse representation to make it use much less
+diskspace than traditional filesystems.
+
+You can't write to a cramfs filesystem (making it compressible and
+compact also makes it _very_ hard to update on-the-fly), so you have to
+create the disk image with the "mkcramfs" utility.
+
+
+Usage Notes
+-----------
+
+File sizes are limited to less than 16MB.
+
+Maximum filesystem size is a little over 256MB. (The last file on the
+filesystem is allowed to extend past 256MB.)
+
+Only the low 8 bits of gid are stored. The current version of
+mkcramfs simply truncates to 8 bits, which is a potential security
+issue.
+
+Hard links are supported, but hard linked files
+will still have a link count of 1 in the cramfs image.
+
+Cramfs directories have no `.' or `..' entries. Directories (like
+every other file on cramfs) always have a link count of 1. (There's
+no need to use -noleaf in `find', btw.)
+
+No timestamps are stored in a cramfs, so these default to the epoch
+(1970 GMT). Recently-accessed files may have updated timestamps, but
+the update lasts only as long as the inode is cached in memory, after
+which the timestamp reverts to 1970, i.e. moves backwards in time.
+
+Currently, cramfs must be written and read with architectures of the
+same endianness, and can be read only by kernels with PAGE_CACHE_SIZE
+== 4096. At least the latter of these is a bug, but it hasn't been
+decided what the best fix is. For the moment if you have larger pages
+you can just change the #define in mkcramfs.c, so long as you don't
+mind the filesystem becoming unreadable to future kernels.
+
+
+For /usr/share/magic
+--------------------
+
+0 ulelong 0x28cd3d45 Linux cramfs offset 0
+>4 ulelong x size %d
+>8 ulelong x flags 0x%x
+>12 ulelong x future 0x%x
+>16 string >\0 signature "%.16s"
+>32 ulelong x fsid.crc 0x%x
+>36 ulelong x fsid.edition %d
+>40 ulelong x fsid.blocks %d
+>44 ulelong x fsid.files %d
+>48 string >\0 name "%.16s"
+512 ulelong 0x28cd3d45 Linux cramfs offset 512
+>516 ulelong x size %d
+>520 ulelong x flags 0x%x
+>524 ulelong x future 0x%x
+>528 string >\0 signature "%.16s"
+>544 ulelong x fsid.crc 0x%x
+>548 ulelong x fsid.edition %d
+>552 ulelong x fsid.blocks %d
+>556 ulelong x fsid.files %d
+>560 string >\0 name "%.16s"
+
+
+Hacker Notes
+------------
+
+See fs/cramfs/README for filesystem layout and implementation notes.