mfs/README at master · repk/mfs · GitHub

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
MFS
===

Mfs or Mailfs is a linux kernel IMAP file system. It allows to mount an IMAP
server in a directory and reading mails by reading files.


NOTICE
------

This project is at its early stage, and has only a pedagogic purpose to help me
learn how fs and networking work inside linux kernel. If you still want to give
it a shot I strongly recommend to test it in a VM.


Build it
--------

Simply run "make". Hopefully everything will build ok.
To compile with debug kernel messages run "make DEBUG=1"


How to use it
-------------

As root user:
	insmod ./build/fs/mfs.ko
	mount -o port=IMAPPORT,login=IMAPLOGIN,pass=IMAPPASS -tmfs IPADDR /mnt/mail

As normal user:
	ls /mnt/mail/INBOX
	cat /mnt/mail/INBOX/12


Mount helper
------------

In order to avoid to write your password in clear text on the command line, a
helper is in build/tools/mount.mfs.

First as root user copy build/tools/mount.mfs in /sbin then use mount as below:
	insmod ./build/fs/mfs.ko
	mount -o port=IMAPPORT,login=IMAPLOGIN -tmfs IPADDR /mnt/mail

It will ask you to enter imap password at mount time without printing it.


TODO (not in order)
-------------------

	- Export mail in an maildir/mbox/understandable format
	- Implement mail body cache, so not to fetch mail body too often (use
	  address_space_operation to use buffer cache)
	- Support mail deletion when doing a "rm" on it.
	- Support concurrent file access (protect imap structure)
	- and so on ...