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PicFS VM wraps SMB shares and a webui around a novel fs that automatically resizes jpg images

Features

Collegiate:
No

One-line Description:
PicFS VM wraps SMB shares and a webui around a novel fs that automatically resizes jpg images

Filename:
picfs.zip

Size Compressed:
90

Allocated Memory:
128

Username:
root

Password:
picfs0

VMware Tools Installed?:
Yes

Operating System:
Linux - Fedora Core 3

Applications:
In addition to kernel, startup, and core util stock packages installed by FC3 "minimal" installation, PicFS includes:
1. Samba (server and client) 3.0
2. Tcl 8.4.7, Tcllib 1.8, Tclhttpd 3.5.1
3. Epeg 0.9 (jpeg scaling)
4. Fuse 2.3 (filesystem in user space)
PicFS and the PicFS admin interface were written for this VM,
and are being publically released for the first time. (MIT-style
license).

Description:
PURPOSE
The PicFS VM appliance serves exactly one purpose: to make it easy to resize your JPG images. Even casual digital photographers have growing collections of high resolution image files that are too big to comfortably email or insert into documents or web pages. Dozens of resizing utilities exist, but they all require you to manually select, resize, and save off a modified copy of your picture - this can quickly become a nuisance.
The PicFS filesystem solves this problem at a completely different level: the file system itself resizes your image on demand - no intermediate files are created. PicFS is a custom Linux kernel module and userspace application, however; to make it useful, the PicFS VM uses Samba to provide seamless integration with Windows users (although it can easily be configured for other operating systems).
A custom web application lets users configure the Samba mounts. Typical end users don't ever have to see or know what the VM is running - or that it even exists - once installed, the new \picfspictures share just "magically" appears and serves up resized and original versions of their pictures without having to touch their host system. Advanced users, however, can easily login and set up more complex solutions.
Interestingly, PicFS is an example of using VM technology to make a foreign application more closely integrated with its host, rather than more isolated, as virtual appliances typically do.
BUILDING THE APPLIANCE
The appliance is simply a minimal install Fedora Core 3 Linux, built with 8GB growable SCSI disk, disconnected cdrom, bridged networking, and 128MB ram. Initially built with Workstation 4.5.2 on Linux; upgraded with Workstation 5.5.1 on Windows. Latest VMWare tools is installed. Disk has a second ext3 partition that can be used for swap, temp files, etc. if mounted.
Completely unrelated services and configurations were disabled or uninstalled, but there is still large room for space optimization. Packages that weren't needed by basic startup, Samba, or Tcl were all removed. Locale files, documentation and man pages were also removed. Perl was the only application removed by force (--nodeps).
Samba was added and configured to always export /mnt/picfs as read-only \picfspictures, and to import external shares in /mnt/pics. PicFS mirrors /mnt/pics into /mnt/picfs. Epeg library files were copied directly over from a development FC3 machine.
The real value-add is PicFS and its web interface: these were written in C and Tcl, respectively. PicFS is much simpler than it sounds: it is just a tiny (6k stripped) user-level process that connects Fuse kernel module callbacks to Epeg library calls. The web interface simply monitors /etc/mtab and rewrites smbfs /etc/fstab entries.
Other performance and filesystem utilities (ex, NFS) are included as is to make it easy to use and troubleshoot PicFS VM in other environments.
USING THE APPLIANCE
1. Boot. Full FC3 boot can take a few moments, be patient.
2. Instead of login prompt, you'll get a welcome message providing quick start instructions and pointer to the admin interface.
3. If anything goes wrong, press enter to login as root on console (or ssh in, which is enabled). The root password is 'picfs0'; all custom code is in /root. If Tclhttpd doesn't start, the XHTML contents of the help page are in /root/tclhttpd/htdocs/help.xml.
4. To shutdown, log in as root and execute 'shutdown -h now'
COMPONENTS
Fedora Core 3 /Linux (GPL and others)

Tcl, Tcllib, Tclhttpd (BSD)
http://www.tcl.tk
Epeg (BSD)
http://www.enlightenment.org
Samba (GPL)
http://www.samba.org
Fuse (GPL/LGPL)
http://fuse.sourceforge.net
PicFS (MIT-style)
Only available with this VM

Technical Specifications

Operating System:

Linux - Fedora Core 3

VMware Tools installed: No

Size: 90MB

Allocated Memory (RAM): 128

Applications Installed:

In addition to kernel, startup, and core util stock packages installed by FC3 "minimal" installation, PicFS includes:

1. Samba (server and client) 3.0
2. Tcl 8.4.7, Tcllib 1.8, Tclhttpd 3.5.1
3. Epeg 0.9 (jpeg scaling)
4. Fuse 2.3 (filesystem in user space)

PicFS and the PicFS admin interface were written for this VM,
and are being publically released for the first time. (MIT-style
license).

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