Quelling Filesyustem Activity

[Arthur David Olson]

The usual way of doing file system backups is to identify processes using the
file system, doing in all such processes, unmounting the system, and proceeding
with the dump.

How about being able to "freeze" file systems instead?  Once a freeze system
call was issued for a file system, processes that attempted to write to it
would block until the appropriate "thaw" call was made.

Seems to me like a cleaner solution that the "fuser" and "ofile" approaches
that have been discussed.  And you can avoid doing in any processes.

(Question for those in the know:  could such an idea be implemented using any
of the file locking schemes that exist now?)
--
UNIX is an AT&T Bell Laboratories trademark.
Activity is the beaver's trademark.
--
	UUCP: ..decvax!seismo!elsie!ado    ARPA: elsie!ado at seismo.ARPA
	DEC, VAX and Elsie are Digital Equipment and Borden trademarks