Linux Transname Patch

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Wherefore is linux-2.0.21-transname.patch?

Currently different diskless clients must have their root "/" on different directories on the server, beause each client has _some_ different configuration files. However, most files (typically about 99%) have the same contents on the clients and on the server, but have to be duplicated (and maintained separately) just because of the 1% differences. This duplication causes very large efforts in practice, since at least the /etc directory has to be duplicated for every client. Even in /etc many files are identical, for example sendmail.cf, initrc scripts and others. Maintaining a large pool means to ensure coherence amoung the duplicates. Classical methods like symlinks are unconvenient for this task because they have to be valid in the view of mounted filesystems at the client, not at the server.

linux-2.0.21-transname.patch overcomes this problem by allowing filenames to be context-dependend. For example, if you have a file "/etc/config" that should differ on the hosts "myserver" and "myclient", you just create two different files named "/etc/config#host=myserver#" and "/etc/config#host=myclient#". On host "myserver", the file "/etc/config#host=myserver#" will appear as if it were hardlinked to file "/etc/config" (without the #...=...# suffix). On host "myclient", the corresponding other file will appear as "/etc/config". So you can access the right file contents under the same name, depending on which host you are.

A similar concept can be found in older HP-UX version, but with so-called "hidden directories" which don't allow contemporary viewing all versions by default. In contrast, our concept shows all context-dependent files in the dir listing and they can be edited under the fully qualified name.