preserfs
========

Preserfs is a FUSE filesystem that preserves metadata on top of
a less capable filesystem.

Development is still at the very, very early beginnings.


Rationale
---------

I'm using an online service for data storage and being privacy-
conscious I encrypt the personal files I put there. Specifically,
I'm using eCryptfs for the encryption which has the side-effect
of creating files with very long names.

Unfortunately, the service I'm using imposes restrictions on
filename and path lengths that are far too narrow for my files.
On top of that, all the metadata, i.e., owner, group, permissions,
modification time, are lost.

Preserfs is intended to be used in two ways or directions.

In the reverse direction, it maps a fully-capable filesystem to
a restricted view with shortened names and a per-directory, virtual
file (.preserfs-metadata) containing the unspoiled metadata for
each file in that directory. This view is meant to be suitable for
backups to a service that may not keep metadata intact.

In the forward direction, preserfs creates an enhanced view with
original names and metadata on top of a (copy of a) restricted view.


Roadmap
-------

0. Get to grips with C++ (again).
1. Metadata: extract, save, restore, apply.
2. Directory tree: map filenames and paths in both directions, lookup metadata.
3. Reverse direction FUSE read-only filesystem.
4. Forward direction FUSE read-only filesystem.
5. Limit reified directory tree size (LRU caching).
6. Multithreading.
7. Algorithms for filename shortening: MD5, SHA1, short name + number.