Unmounted File Handle

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Fri, Sep 23, 2005 at 04:11:27PM -0700, EXT-Wolber, Richard wrote:
> Is it practical to get a R/W file handle opened against an existing file
> on an unmounted ext2 filesystem?

What do you mean by a "read/write file handle"?  

Do you mean opening a file descriptor using the open(2) system call?
Do you mean opening a stdio stream handle using the fopen(3) library
call?  In either case, no, you can can only open() or fopen() a file
on a mounted filesystem, and it doesn't matter which filesystem you
are using.

There are a set of interfaces as part of the ext2fs library which
would allow you to manipulate a file on an unmounted filesystem.

						- Ted