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<title>FUR (FUSE use libRAPI)</title>
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<h1 style="text-align: center;">FUR</h1>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<h2>(FUSE use libRAPI)</h2>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<ul>
<li><a href="FUR%2520%28FUSE%2520use%2520libRAPI%29.html#What_it_is_">What
it is?</a></li>
<li><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="#What_it_does">What
it does?</a></span></li>
<li><a href="#What_does_it_need">What does it need?</a></li>
<li><a href="#Where_can_i_find_it">Where can i find it?</a></li>
<li><a href="#How_do_i_make_it_work">How do i make it work?</a></li>
<li><a href="#What_work_now">What work now?</a></li>
<li><a href="#What_does_not">What does not?</a></li>
<li><a href="#How_can_i_contact_you">How can i contact you?</a></li>
<li><a href="#Why_should_i">Why should i?</a></li>
<li><a href="#And_who_are_you_anyway">And who are you anyway?</a></li>
</ul>
<h3><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">NEWS</span></h3>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">5/06/2006</span> <span
style="font-weight: bold;">FUR</span> letargic but not dead: fixed a
bug that prevented it from renaming a file overwriting an existing
destination (Thanks to Clemens R. for the report!). <a
href="FUR-0.4.1.tar.gz">Here you go...</a><br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">?/05/2006</span> Fixed a couple of
broken links and re-tarred the package of FUR-0.4.0.tar.gz (which was
incorrectly compressed with bzip2...). I apologize for every
inconvenient this may have caused to you.<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">28/04/2006</span> <span
style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">SRPMS available for FUR! <span
style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Genix, which i thank also for his
precious feedback and help in the bug fixing on FUR as well as for a
patch to enhance the configure script (not yet included, sorry... :-/ )
has made available source packages for the ALT linux
distribution: the page is in russian, but links are in plain
English; it's likely that the synce library should be patched and
compiled manually and that some incompatibilities could arise on
non-ALT linux systems, notheless maybe they could be useful for people
on RPM based system</span></span>.<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">22/04/2006</span> A new filesystem for
browsing a Window CE device on linux called<span
style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> SynCE FS</span> has been released by
Laurent Vivier: the developer is spending a consistent effort to
enhance the program, which might be worth checking: to get the latest
news/releases, search "SynCE FS" in the SynCE-devel mailing list on
sourceforge.<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br>
</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">?/03/2006</span> The bug
revealed itself as a strange behaviour of the device (which contained 2
files with names different only in case in the /windows directory). Im
still puzzled if the crash is to be considered a bug or not (afaik,
windowce uses vfat filesystem, which doens't distinguish between case
in file names...). The problem has been solved for Lazlo commenting the
assert at line 485 of fur_utils.c (which probably will be substituted
with a warning in the next release).<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">24/03/2006</span> Discovered a bug
which seem to crash <span style="font-weight: bold;">FUR</span> on
some circumstances when reading the content of a directory (thanks to
Laszlo for the report): im quite overloaded by work (as can be seen
from the last release...) but i will work on it as soon as i will have
more informations (and enough time).<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">27/02/2006</span> Received some patch
to enhance the configuration script and enable a correct installation
of FUR (Thank you Genix!): the files will be included in the next
release.<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">6/02/2006</span> Added a proc like
directory into <span style="font-weight: bold;">FUR: </span>there
are 2 files for now: power_status and regkeys; do they need
explanations? I think not... :-)<br>
<br>
The filesystem seems stable, but proc is not: don't expect it to work
perfectly. <br>
<br>
The attributes can be read as raw data, don't expect fancy printing of
numbers or endianess connection, i don't know if it will ever happen (i
like them that way, but im open for suggestion) and... take a book
before reading into the regkeys directory: you will need it while
waiting ;-)<br>
<br>
Write in the procis not implemented: i don't know how much is needed
and i think i will concentrate on other things in the future (like
putting the correct time attribute on the files).<br>
<br>
The file is <a href="FUR-0.4.0.tar.gz">here</a>.<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">26/01/2006</span> Implemented a small
patch to librapi (which you can find <a href="librapi.patch">here</a>):
it doesn't change the behavior of the library <br>
other than adding the CeSetFilePointer and CeSetEndOfFile API. Now that
the whole crock which emulated them in FUR is<br>
gone, FUR seems to be stable! <br>
<br>
You can find the new version <a href="FUR-0.3.0.tar.gz">here</a>: i
used it quite for a while without noticing crash/bugs of any kind, if
you find some, <span style="font-weight: bold;">please</span>, <br>
tell me.<br>
<br>
Of course to use this version you have to install the patch: enter the
synce-librapi2-0.9.1 directory and execute:<br>
<br>
patch -p1 <<a href="librapi.patch">librapi.patch</a><br>
<br>
<span style="text-decoration: underline;">Recompile and reinstall</span>
(this will <span style="text-decoration: underline;">not</span> change
the behaviour of the library in other applications) and you should be
ready to <br>
run the flaming new FUR-0.3.0! <br>
<br>
As far as i know, FUR is working decently now tough many features are
still missing: let me know if (how much :-) ) im wrong! <br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">25/01/2006 </span>first milestone
reached: <span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">FUR
compiled and executed (not mounted) on FUR</span>!<br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">20/01/2006 </span>Good news: i
discovered other bugs (-> hopefully i will be able to correct them).
Bad news: i discovered other bugs.<br>
The seek/truncate workaround are driving me mad. Week end will be
likely dedicated to make FUR a bit more stable. Stay tuned. <br>
<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;">18/01/2006</span> Fur-0.2.2 released!
You can find it <a href="FUR-0.2.2.tar.gz">here</a>: some bugs removed
and a (what seem a) working seek function implemented.<br>
<br>
Truncate doesn't still work, but the fs should be more
stable. Multi threading not tested (but may work also).<br>
<br>
I also have added a small Change log <a href="Changelog">here</a>.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<h3><a name="What_it_is_"></a>What it is?<br>
</h3>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">FUR</span>
is a application that let the user mount a Windows CE based device on
your Linux file system: it uses the brilliant <span
style="font-weight: bold;">FUSE</span> (acronym of <span
style="font-style: italic;">File system in UserSpacE</span> of Miklos
Szeredi) which you can find <a
href="http://fuse.sourceforge.net/">here</a> and the great
librapi2 of the <a style="font-weight: bold;"
href="http://synce.sourceforge.net/synce/">Synce Project</a>, a unix
implementation of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">RAPI</span>
protocol (that your device use to communicate with your other operating
$system ) which you can find here, along with other very nice tools.<br>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br>
<h3><a name="What_it_does"></a>What it does?</h3>
You execute it with proper arguments, then (if everything goes fine)
the entire file system of your (previously connected) handheld will
appear automagically mounted like a regular Linux file system where you
will be able to copy, move read and write data with your favorite
programs.<br>
<br>
<h3><a name="What_does_it_need"></a>What does it need?</h3>
FUR need at least a fuse distribution version 2.4.2 and synce-librapi2
version 0.9.1 tough i cannot guarantee it will not work with older
versions of both software.<br>
<br>
<h3><a name="Where_can_i_find_it"></a>Where can i find it?</h3>
<a href="http://www.infis.univ.trieste.it/%7Ericcardo/FUR-latest.tar.gz">Try
here...</a> (latest version)<br>
<br>
<h3><a name="How_do_i_make_it_work"></a>How do i make it work?</h3>
I will not go inside the details of installation and configuration of <span
style="font-weight: bold;">FUSE</span> and <span
style="font-weight: bold;">Synce</span> on your machine (you can find
all the instructions you may need <a
href="http://fuse.sourceforge.net/">here</a> and <a
href="http://synce.sourceforge.net/synce/howto.php">here</a>): once
you have the first working
(i.e. you can test it compiling and running one of the example programs
included with the tgz, or you can download one of the _very_ fine
projects you can find linked to the <span style="font-weight: bold;">FUSE</span>
homepage (preferably not this...)) and a connection to your handheld
(use the command synce-pls or pls to check if it's working), read this <a
href="COPYING">license</a>
and, if you agree, configure and install fur. <br>
<br>
I apologize for quality of the configuration tool: this is my first
try,one with bells and whistles will be available sooner or later, but
until then there's
only a
small configure which <span style="font-style: italic;">should</span>
work.<br>
<br>
After the ./configure step, simply issue:<br>
<br>
<pre>./make </pre>
<br>
and if everything goes well a small binary named <samp>Fur</samp>
will appear in the directory. Do you want to try it, won't you?
Execute: <br>
<br>
<pre>./Fur <span style="font-style: italic;">destination_directory</span><br></pre>
<br>
and your device fs should appear there. <br>
<br>
When you want to unmount it simply issue:<br>
<br>
<pre>fusermount -u <span style="font-style: italic;">destination_directory</span><br></pre>
If something goes wrong and you can't unmount the file system,
in order:<br>
<br>
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: bold;">DON'T PANIC</li>
<li>If <samp>fusermount -u</samp> say that the device is busy, use <samp>ps</samp>
to check that there's no process running inside the FUSE file system</li>
<li>If everything fails, try <samp>killall -9 Fur </samp>and then
again retry step 2.</li>
</ol>
<h3><a name="What_work_now"></a>What work now? (<span
style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">outdated</span>)<br>
</h3>
Fist of all, understand that <span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">FUR</span><span
style="text-decoration: underline;"> is Beta software</span>, still in
development, actually is a week end hack: it is not stable, optimized,
nice, user friendly or anything... This does not mean it will not
become
such in the (maybe near) future, but don't expect it to be fast or rock
solid; i actually use it and it never did anything so wrong that
could not be undone with a couple of kill -9 and a fusermount
-u plus remounting but i didn't test it thoroughly and i cannot
guarantee it will not do something very <span
style="font-weight: bold; text-decoration: underline;">NASTY</span> to
your universe of choice:
make a backup of your handheld device before using it, and have a
backup of your important data on your computer to, which is always a <span
style="text-decoration: underline;">Good</span> Idea, and keep in mind
the <a href="COPYING">license</a>.<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br>
</span>5/1/2006<br>
<ul>
<li>All read operations seem pretty stable: as long as you limit
yourself to them you <span style="font-style: italic;">should</span>
be safe (but please re-read the disclaimer and the
previous paragraph again...), which means you can change and list
directories, and read sequentially files (means you can copy them
around without problem).</li>
<li>Rename/Move work.<br>
</li>
<li>Reading files in random access fashion also works, but due to the
lack of a Seek api in the librapi2, the file pointer is moved with a
combination of fake reads, open and close. Go figure.</li>
<li>The minimum set of attributes to make the fs usable work:
file size, permissions and owner, tough permissions are actually not
read from your device but assumed rw for every file (which is plain
wrong for system files).<br>
</li>
<li>Mkdir and mknod seem to work.</li>
<li>Hic sunt leones: write almost work, with the same remarks for the
read operation (sequential work fine, random access seem to) but there
are unresolved issues (which i hope to handle soon), if you limit
writing to file copying, should work decently tough.<br>
</li>
</ul>
<h3><a name="What_does_not"></a>What does not? (<span
style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">outdated</span>)<br>
</h3>
5/1/2005<br>
<ul>
<li>Not very stable, particularly if used concurrently by different
processes (but should be usable).</li>
<li>Not well tested.<br>
</li>
<li>The source is horrible(Tm).</li>
<li>The implementation is more involved than it should.<br>
</li>
<li>Lack documentation. <br>
</li>
<li>Not even remotely optimized.</li>
<li>Configuration tools deficient.<br>
</li>
<li>Random access I/O is anti-optimized. </li>
<li>The resource locking system (e.g. to prevent different processes
to write on the same file) is only roughly implemented (there's a
lot to be done).</li>
<li>Total absence of a caching system of some sort (which i hope to
implement, sooner or later).</li>
<li>Some errors are to obscure (and maybe not well implemented).</li>
<li>Some attributes (e.g. ctime) are not implemented (the needed
function in the librapi2 library is not yet implemented).</li>
<li>No UID/GID check: this is not a security issue: only the user
that invoke the dccm demon can access the filesystem, but other users
should be able to see some kind of error message (which i will
implement soon).</li>
<li>Lot of other things i have forgot now.</li>
<li>The log reporting sucks.<br>
</li>
</ul>
<h3><a name="How_can_i_contact_you"></a>How can i contact you?</h3>
You can send me a mail (riccardo A_t_ infis Dot univ D0t
trieste d0t it): please, specify something like "FUR:" or "fur:" in the
title, so i can tell my spam eater not to trash it.<br>
<h3><a name="Why_should_i"></a>Why should i?</h3>
I.e. to tell me that you use <span style="font-weight: bold;">FUR</span>
and you like it (or you did not): i can't promise anything,
but the more will i feel that this project is useful to someone and the
more i will feel like to fix bugs or add features/documentation:
consider that <span style="font-weight: bold;">FUR</span> is yet good
enough for me to use and as long as i don't receive feedback, my
interest in this project is likely to decrease. <br>
<br>
Flames go to /dev/null. <br>
<br>
Another good reason is to inform me about a bug, but before you send me
a report, first check that:<br>
<ul>
<li>you have read <span
style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">ALL</span>
the documentation (this page...): c'mon, it's not that much!<br>
</li>
<li>you have the right versions of the librapi2 and fuse.</li>
<li>both work.</li>
<li>You have the latest version of <span style="font-weight: bold;">FUR</span>.</li>
<li>Your problem is not yet listed in the <a href="BUGS.txt">bug
list</a> (ok... when i have one...).<br>
</li>
</ul>
The best way to inform me about a bug compile it with the -g option and
send me a core dump (you can obtain one executing <samp>ulimit
-c unlimited</samp> before mounting <span style="font-weight: bold;">FUR</span>,
the core will appear in the directory where <span
style="font-weight: bold;">FUR</span> was mounted, after a crash) and
a description of the problem.<br>
<br>
I don't think that from the very moment this project will hit the web i
will start receiving as much email as Madonna, but still i cannot
guarantee that i will be able to answer to anyone: i will try
tough, and if you don't receive a answer, don't take it personal: it
could be that the question is out of context ("How do i install
synce/fuse/linux?", "Why every time i mount <span
style="font-weight: bold;">FUR</span> i feel a sharp pain in the
right eye?" and the like) or simply that i'm busy.<br>
<h3><a name="And_who_are_you_anyway"></a>And who are you anyway?</h3>
My name is Riccardo Di Meo, i actually work for the <a
href="http://www.ictp.it">ICTP</a> and more precisely in the <a
href="http://www.egrid.it">Egrid project </a> as programmer. I
live in Trieste, a nice city in the NE of Italy. Almost all interest i
have are related to computers (and programming mainly) or swimming, and
this is the first project i submit to the the world. <br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>
<!--
<h3>How can i help you? </h3>
The most useful thing you can do to help me in the developing of <span
style="font-weight: bold;">FUR</span> is to help the guy of the Synce,
since FUR rely almost entirely on their work and there are some missing
rapi functions that are giving me headhaches: you can find detail about
the way of helping them in the source tree of the librapi2, if you do,
please specify that your help is provaided for the advance of FUR
(too). <br>
<br>
For what concern my project, whishlist is (in order of importance):<br>
<ol>
<li>CeSetFilePointer: to permit better random access to files.</li>
<li>CeSetEndOfFile: needed to implement the truncate operation</li>
<li>CeGet/SetFileTime</li>
<li>CeGlobalMemoryStatus <br>
</li>
</ol>
However patches and <br>
<br>
--></div>
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