Filesystem which overwrites itself?

tommed · 2010-05-18 15:04:44

Hi Guys,

I have an IP camera which I want to write the stream to disk all the time.

The obvious issue with this is that the disk will obvious become full after a while.

I could write a daemon to clear-up the older files when disk space becomes low; but I was wondering if there was a file system available that would automatically write newer files over older files? Sounds like a bit of a niche, I know, but thought there might be something out there...?

Thanks!

Bralkein · 2010-05-18 16:13:54

I've never heard of a filesystem that does that, but it should be easy to manage by using instead a cron job to clear things up. If the camera delivers data at a constant rate you could figure out how much data you need to delete every hour or every day and just sling a tiny shell script in /etc/cron.hourly or /etc/cron.daily to take care of things. I reckon it would take about 10 minutes to set up. If you haven't decided already I would advise putting the camera data on another file system whatever you're doing, just so that your whole disk doesn't get eaten if something goes wrong. I did something similar to this before and it turns out computers start behaving badly when they're all full up!

Good luck with your camera, if you spy anything interesting with it please remember to upload and post links

PS. Hello from Reading!

tommed · 2010-05-18 16:22:21

Thanks Bralkein,

And hello from Newbury! Blimey, it is a small world! I was just chatting to the manager of the Reading Jazz Café (in the Madeski stadium) on Twitter!! (They have a comedy club on this Wednesday)

I am happy to do it programmatic-ally (either cron or a daemon) as I need my own daemon on this box anyway, just wondered if there was a fs that does this, as there must be a requirement for one in other sectors!!

Not spying on anything myself, it's bespoke software for a security firm. So unfortunately, no dodgy picks available for sharing!

I was planning on rolling the stream to different date-named files every day (3gp codec, so very small file data), so clearing out old video footage would be very simple to do. But a filesystem that did it for me would be a more elegant solution (i believe)

fsckd · 2010-05-18 16:50:50

Make your own filesystem. FUSE to the rescue!

(Hello from Ganymede, puny Earthlings.)

moljac024 · 2010-05-18 17:30:27

I don't believe such a beast exists, as I reckon you would run into so many problems trying to design such a file system, and what problem would it solve actually?

briest · 2010-05-18 20:41:32

This is the very solution used by inn to keep news spool: cycbuf (cyclic buffer). I have never seen this idea implemented in a standard-accessible filesystem, though.

Blue Peppers · 2010-05-19 07:14:14

tommed wrote:

And hello from Newbury! Blimey, it is a small world!

Hello from Newbury as well! Very small world indeed...

tommed · 2010-08-02 15:53:34

Wow @BluePeppers! Another member and we'll have to start a Newbury Arch forum! Ha ha ha!

diegonc · 2010-08-02 17:03:36

I guess this is what you are after:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-structured_file_system

marfig · 2010-08-02 18:02:50

Still a newb, so apologies in advance if this answer misses the mark entirely.
...

Arch includes already on the Core repository the logrotate tool. It's most probably already installed in your machine since it's a part of Base and is also probably already running (/etc/cron.daily/). There's a stub wiki entry for it. But configuration is easy enough. I think you could adapt it easily to deal with your problem.

EDIT: Just now noticed this thread had been dug from the grave. In any case, here's my post for completion.

Last edited by marfig (2010-08-02 18:05:32)

Automath · 2024-03-05 22:08:37

A wiped disk kinda works like that as inodes get overwritten but data remain on disk. Not a good implementation, nor sure if functional at all, but works kinda that way.
Anyway you have to wipe the drive anytime it gets full so its the same.

V1del · 2024-03-05 23:16:33

You're necroing a 14 year old thread...

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Genera … bumping%22

Closing.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-05-18 15:04:44

Filesystem which overwrites itself?

#2 2010-05-18 16:13:54

Re: Filesystem which overwrites itself?

#3 2010-05-18 16:22:21

Re: Filesystem which overwrites itself?

#4 2010-05-18 16:50:50

Re: Filesystem which overwrites itself?

#5 2010-05-18 17:30:27

Re: Filesystem which overwrites itself?

#6 2010-05-18 20:41:32

Re: Filesystem which overwrites itself?

#7 2010-05-19 07:14:14

Re: Filesystem which overwrites itself?

#8 2010-08-02 15:53:34

Re: Filesystem which overwrites itself?

#9 2010-08-02 17:03:36

Re: Filesystem which overwrites itself?

#10 2010-08-02 18:02:50

Re: Filesystem which overwrites itself?

#11 2024-03-05 22:08:37

Re: Filesystem which overwrites itself?

#12 2024-03-05 23:16:33

Re: Filesystem which overwrites itself?

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