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QNX Operating System/Discussion/OSTech/[QNX 7] fs-ext2.so is missing in QNX 7.0.0 release/List of Posts
Forum Topic - [QNX 7] fs-ext2.so is missing in QNX 7.0.0 release: (7 Items)
   
Update
Brian Carnes(deleted)
02/13/2018 8:56 PM
post118574
[QNX 7] fs-ext2.so is missing in QNX 7.0.0 release   
In /usr/qnx/qnx700-ga-201702151847/target/qnx7/x86_64/lib/dll

We see:
  fs-udf.so
  fs-dos.so
  fs-qnx6.so
  fs-mac.so
  fs-nt.so

But not fs-ext2.so

It is present in QNX 6.6

It is documented in QNX7 here: http://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/7.0.0/index.html#com.qnx.doc.neutrino.utilities/topic/
f/fs-ext2.so.html

Where are QNX7 users supposed to obtain this filesystem driver?
Is there a later release of QNX7.x, or a downloadable patch that adds this missing functionality?

Thanks!
Steve Reid
02/14/2018 8:51 AM
post118578
Re: [QNX 7] fs-ext2.so is missing in QNX 7.0.0 release   
It was discontinued, but it was still in the original documentation for SDP 7. We removed it in our June 2017 doc update
, but it seems to be lingering on the website (even if the Utilities Reference no longer includes it). We'll remove the 
file. Thanks for letting us know.
Brian Carnes(deleted)
02/14/2018 10:48 AM
post118579
Re: [QNX 7] fs-ext2.so is missing in QNX 7.0.0 release   
If it is discontinued in QNX7 (perhaps it was not worth porting it to ensue the code was 64-bit clean...), allow me to 
request on behalf of the QNX community that you release that (ancient) filesystem driver source code...

Thanks for your consideration.

We'll explore other options for the underlying use case as well.  QNX's ext2 implementation was pinned to a circa 2001 
set of feature flags in ext2, but it was useful for certain interoperability setups.
Brian Carnes(deleted)
03/22/2018 12:23 PM
post118696
Re: [QNX 7] fs-ext2.so is missing in QNX 7.0.0 release   
Given the torrent of replies and activity on the previous request, we'll assume that no source release of the deprecated
 fs-ext2.so driver is forthcoming...

Our use case was to preserve our sol'n for a filesystem containing loopback images, shared w/ Linux.  This allows us to 
have development/test machines boot multiple releases of our QNX and Linux target images (we use grub and its menus and 
savedefault functionality as our picker / IPL).

This worked great in QNX6.6.0.  With the loss of ext2, it was a little crippled under QNX7.  We can use FAT32 for the 
loopback images, but things we missed most: permissions and symlinks.

We're now using the QNX mount option for fs-dos to just make everything on that partition executable (overkill, but 
works acceptably, and we can tolerate no uid/gid/finer-grained permissions for this use case).

We've implemented a passthrough/filter filesystem, that gives the illusion of dynamic symlinks on top of the fs-dos.so 
mountpoint.  (static symlinks via ln -sP were too brittle for our use, so we do it via a "qnx inflator" style overlay 
filesystem that turn fat32-backed files with particular prefix content into true symlinks in the eyes of QNX, and makes 
that illusion complete via resmgr/iofunc/etc. implementations of open/readlink/link/read/etc.

It works well enough for our use case, but it is unfortunate we had to go to these lengths to preserve functionality due
 to fs-ext2.so being silently deprecated, and the lack of fs-ext2.so source being released.

Based on things we had to work out on our own, documentation updates would be appreciated for:

* add "inflator" to the qnx cookbook ("ramdisk" and "tar" mounters in there are a bit dated, and don't cover the filter/
passthrough behavior - we had to watch inflator's behavior for our own complete sol'n.)

* fs-XXXXX.so implementation guide (does QNX document enough for folks to implement their own fs-*.so driver, short of 
spending a time watching an existing fs-*.so driver interact?)

Thanks and regards,

  Brian
Brian Carnes(deleted)
03/28/2018 2:15 AM
post118705
Re: [QNX 7] fs-ext2.so is missing in QNX 7.0.0 release   
Thanks to those who sent helpful suggestions directly.  Before the previous msg, we'd already implemented what we needed
 to be unblocked.

In case it wasn't clear, the previous msg was a suggestion for where to flesh out the QNX documentation for future 
developers.  We were able to figure out and implement a complete filter file system driver for the symlink overlay, just
 by registering ourselves as a resource manager, and then watching what msgs and flags came our way as we exercised the 
filesystem - but it would be nice if a reference filter filesystem were added to the QNX cookbook of available sources. 
 If not, perhaps we'll be able to open source our implementation as an example for others.

It'd be much more time consuming to discern the interface needed to create another fs-X.so filesystem driver, so *any* 
fs-X.so filesystem source would be nice to have added, as well.

I'm aware that QNX went through a period of opening and closing their source code, so perhaps the folks out there who 
had access during that window have all the info they need.  We are coming into this at the QNX 6.6 and 7.0 timeline, and
 have no such access or history, so must rely on the QNX documentation, and the runtime behavior we observe on a live 
system.

Hence the commentary on what docs or example code would benefit developers coming at this from this angle.

Thanks and regards,

  Brian
David Sarrazin
03/28/2018 5:45 PM
post118708
RE: [QNX 7] fs-ext2.so is missing in QNX 7.0.0 release   
Brian,

Sorry for missing your message last week.  
   Because of this feedback from you, and others, we will be releasing the fs-ext2.so filesystem driver for 7.X in a 
future release.  Functionality and support will be unchanged from 6.6.0.




________________________________________
From: Brian Carnes(deleted) [community-noreply@qnx.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2018 2:15 AM
To: ostech-core_os
Subject: Re: [QNX 7] fs-ext2.so is missing in QNX 7.0.0 release

Thanks to those who sent helpful suggestions directly.  Before the previous msg, we'd already implemented what we needed
 to be unblocked.

In case it wasn't clear, the previous msg was a suggestion for where to flesh out the QNX documentation for future 
developers.  We were able to figure out and implement a complete filter file system driver for the symlink overlay, just
 by registering ourselves as a resource manager, and then watching what msgs and flags came our way as we exercised the 
filesystem - but it would be nice if a reference filter filesystem were added to the QNX cookbook of available sources. 
 If not, perhaps we'll be able to open source our implementation as an example for others.

It'd be much more time consuming to discern the interface needed to create another fs-X.so filesystem driver, so *any* 
fs-X.so filesystem source would be nice to have added, as well.

I'm aware that QNX went through a period of opening and closing their source code, so perhaps the folks out there who 
had access during that window have all the info they need.  We are coming into this at the QNX 6.6 and 7.0 timeline, and
 have no such access or history, so must rely on the QNX documentation, and the runtime behavior we observe on a live 
system.

Hence the commentary on what docs or example code would benefit developers coming at this from this angle.

Thanks and regards,

  Brian




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David Sarrazin
03/28/2018 5:56 PM
post118709
Re: RE: [QNX 7] fs-ext2.so is missing in QNX 7.0.0 release   
Sorry for the short message, I hit send accidentally.

Thanks for the feedback on the documentation, and I apologize for the inconvenience caused by the removal of fs-ext2.so.
   I'm glad that you have a working solution right now and, as I mentioned in my last post, we will be making the fs-
ext2.so available again on 7.X in the future.  Feature set and functionality will be identical to what was available in 
QNX 6.6.0, other than adding support for the 64-bit CPU architectures.

Thanks again for your feedback, and pointing out where we can better meet your needs.

David

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