Filesystem resource managers register a mountpoint with the process manager.
A mountpoint is the portion of the path that's registered with the process manager.
The remaining parts of the path are managed by the filesystem resource manager.
For example, when a filesystem resource manager attaches a mountpoint at /mount,
and the path /mount/home/thomasf is examined:
- /mount/
- Identifies the mountpoint that's managed by the process manager.
- home/thomasf
- Identifies the remaining part that's to be managed by the filesystem resource manager.
Examples of using filesystem resource managers are:
- flash filesystem drivers (although the source code for flash drivers
takes care of these details)
- a tar filesystem process that presents the contents of
a tar file as a filesystem
that the user can cd into and ls from
- a mailbox-management process that registers the name
/mailboxes
and manages individual mailboxes that look like directories, and files
that contain the actual messages