[freenet-chat] Towards a Freenet Filesystem

[Joel Salomon]

On 5/22/06, David McNab <david at rebirthing.co.nz> wrote:
>   /keys/CHK at yetanotherfreakinkey
>      - performs a GET of the given key from freenet, and allows it
>        to be read like a file. First line is <mimetype>\n
>   /privatekeys/SSK at anotherkeyprivate/name
>      - the filename 'SSK at anotherkeyprivate' is the private key
>        corresponding to /keys/SSK at anotherkey/name
>      - reading from this file produces a single line, the equivalent
>        public key
>      - writing to this file performs a freenet PUT. First line written
>        should be <mimetype>\n, then the raw key data

I don't like the idea of the MIME type being the first line of the
file; it's something that will have to be stripped when the file is
moved to the rest of the system or worked on by standard programs.

I'd rather have a directory for each key.  Assuming the freenet fs has
been mounted on /freenet, downloads would look like:
	$ cd /freenet/downloads
	$ mkdir CHK at keystring; cd CHK at keystring
	$ tail status
	<lots of messages>
	done
	$ cat mimetype
	text/plain
	$ cat name
	dissident_report
	$ cat data > ~/`cat name`
	$ ls ~/dis*
	/usr/glenda/dissident_report
	$

And uploads would look like:
	$ cd /freenet/uploads
	$ cat new
	42
	$ cd 42
	$ cat text/plain > mimetype
	$ cat ~/manifesto > data
	$ tail status
	<various messages>
	done
	$ cat key
	CHK at keystring
	$

The influence of Plan 9 (the original source of user-space
filesystems) may be visible here.

--Joel