[Xen-users] Stacked File Systems and Xen - state of the art

[Arik Raffael Funke <arik.funke@xxxxxx>]

Hi,

does anybody know what the current state of stacking filesystems for xen 
guests is? The last discussions were about a year ago. Has anything 
changed? I.e. is it still unreliable and not really recommended?
Motivation:
-----------
I would like to set up a secure firewall. Consequently only minimal 
tools should be available... which makes administration not exactly 
comfortable.
The basic idea is to have the domU's (i.e. the firewall machine's) disk 
exported from dom0 via nfs. On dom0 the exported directory consists of 
several stacked layers. In the "standard" layer a "comfortable" linux is 
installed with all the tools that make admin's life easier... but the 
machine unsafe. On a "deletion" layer all the unneccesary tools have 
been marked as deleted. (...think about unionfs using the white-out 
deletion method.)
Now anytime I want to change something significant on my router I take 
it from the net, remove the "deletions" layer and restart it - and can 
comfortably go about my business without being hindered my by own 
security-mindedness.
Advantage of this approach: I only need unionfs support in dom0 and do 
not have to worry about fiddling with initrds etc for my guests.
Has anybody done this; how does it work in practise? Or - does anybody 
see a reason why this can't be done or won't work properly?
Regards,
Arik


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