CODEWITHSUNDEEP
language-agnosticcross-platformvirtual-drive
Goran
Goran

Reputation: 6846

Cross OS virtual drive functionality

Looking for online resources to implement a virtual drive functionality similar to ones implemented in products listed here

The solution should be cross OS (win, pc, linux) preferably using a well behaving framework. Currently the answer to this question is widely dispersed with no clear option on what to use:

Current suggestions I've found:

  1. Fuse (not really sure on the status of various windows ports)
  2. Dokan library
  3. Custom namespace extensions (windows only, sources in various CodeProject articles)
  4. Commercial frameworks (windows) - LogicNP, Eldos
  5. WebDav

Please list one suggestion per answer and I'll update the question accordingly. The purpose of the question is to create the best reference point for such questions...

It seems WebDav would be easiest to implement cross OS so further information on this would be appreciated.

Upvotes: 12

Views: 2009

Answers (10)

pablo
pablo

Reputation:

Fuse won't work on Windows.

My choice would be:

  • FUSE for Unix/Mac
  • EldoS Callback File System or Filter (we're currently using Filter) for Windows (http://www.eldos.com/)

Regards

Upvotes: 0

Horcrux7
Horcrux7

Reputation: 24477

You can use Alfresco JLAN. JLAN is a Java-Client and Java-Server Implementation of the protocols CIFS, NFS und FTP. With JLAN can files be shared over the network, which are available via a network drive.

The download is at http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=143373&package_id=248550

Upvotes: 1

Mitch Haile
Mitch Haile

Reputation: 11834

SSHFS (requires SFTP on the host side). There are some bugs with it, but we've had good luck with it overall.

Upvotes: 1

Blaine
Blaine

Reputation: 1137

I use jungledisk on all of the mentioned platforms to backup and share files. If you look at their download page, you'll see all of the platforms it's compatible with. I backup my webserver (CentOS x64), a mac OSX 10.5, and a dual-boot pc (Vista/Fedora) all under one license!

  • All versions use WebDav
  • Linux version also has FUSE capability
  • Uses Amazon's affordable S3 storage platform
  • Soon to add Cloud Files support (Mosso) at 15¢/gb no charge for I/O.

JungleDisk

Upvotes: 2

Anirvan
Anirvan

Reputation: 6364

WebDAV. In a heartbeat. It's cross-platform by nature, and there's a substantial amount of client support, as well as decent open source server code. Apache mod_dav is your friend.

Check out WebDAV client support on Mac, Windows, and Linux:

Open source WebDAV servers:

And don't forget to look at WebDAV resources.

Upvotes: 5

David
David

Reputation: 34573

Microsoft Live Mesh will give you synchronized folders across Windows, Mac, your online Mesh storage, and Windows Mobile phones.

Upvotes: -1

Ken Fox
Ken Fox

Reputation: 1679

A simple solution is to use the native SMB client for each of your target platforms, then use that to mount a custom Samba filesystem implemented using Samba's VFS API. Custom NFS servers have been used to implement cross platform Unix virtual file systems, but SMB is a much better choice to support Windows and Linux.

If you need the VFS to access client-side resources, you must run the Samba server with your VFS on the client and then use a loopback or localhost network to mount the drive. Samba is widely ported including a port to Win32 using Cygwin as an adapter.

Upvotes: 8

TMN
TMN

Reputation: 3070

What about simple FTP? Or NAS? Stick with a standard protocol and you shouldn't have any problems integrating with it. I wrote a Linux SFTP filesystem extension once Back In The Day, but with most OSes supporting user-mode filesystems nowadays, it shouldn't be too hard to integrate with whatever you might choose.

Upvotes: 0

vartec
vartec

Reputation: 134701

VirtualBox' VDI. It's Open Source.

Upvotes: 1

Laserallan
Laserallan

Reputation: 11342

Jungle disk

Upvotes: 0

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