On Fri, Jan 05, 2007 at 10:49:58PM -0500, Catalin Patulea wrote:
...
> # mknod union/tty c 5 0
> mknod: `union/tty': Operation not permitted
> 
> This is probably expected to the unionfs developers, but I don't 
> understand why this happens. I would expect unionfs to get an error while 
> trying to create the file on the vfat branch, but to retry the operation 
> in the ram branch. There, it should succeed because tmpfs supports device 
> files just fine. Instead, it appears to me that it bails out on the first 
> attempt.
> 
> Chances are that this behavious is as it is for a good reason. Perhaps 
> some one could at least explain? Any workarounds?

Unionfs retries operations only when going from lower priority branch to
one of higher. The case you describe, is the opposite - going from higher
priority branch to lower. In the case of mknod, what would happen if mknod
failed because a file already exists under that name? If unionfs tried to
create the node on a lower priority branch, the new node file would be
hidden by the one in the higher priority branch => very bad.

Josef "Jeff" Sipek.

-- 
Linux, n.:
  Generous programmers from around the world all join forces to help
  you shoot yourself in the foot for free. 
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