				Overlay Filesystem
				==================

   Welcome to the overlay filesystem.  This file contains references to all of
the information provided with the overlay filesystem and provides a brief
description of the filesystem.

   See the file, Description, for a more detailed description of the filesystem
and issues of concern as a user.


!!! WARNING !!!

   There are some important things to know about the overlay filesystem before
using it.  The author attempted to make this code as solid as possible, but
due to the method of implementation, there are a few flaws that do not make
the filesystem unusable, but need to be strongly considered before using it.

   These issues are documented in the Description file, but some are mentioned
here as well for easy reference.

	- All of the storage of inode information for the overlay filesystem is
	  maintained in kernel memory.  This means that large filesystems may
	  use up a good portion of available kernel memory which slows down the
	  entire system.

	- The contents of directory and regular files are handled by the
	  overlay filesystem; the contents of other types of files in the Base
	  Filesystem may be accessed directly through the use of the overlay
	  filesystem.  For these files, such as device nodes and named pipes,
	  the file operations are simple pass-through operations.

	  In spite of this, any changes to the inode attributes of these files
	  is still maintained by the overlay filesystem.

	- If the base or storage filesystems are changed directly (i.e. not
	  through the use of the overlay filesystem), then the overlay
	  filesystem may generate strange error messages, such as files not
	  existing even though they show up in the directory listing.  For the
	  most part, remounting the filsystem should clear most problems.

DOCUMENTS

   The following files are included in the source distribution.  Note that at
this time, many, if not all, of them need work.

	Author		- Short description of the Author.
	Description	- Detailed description.
	Options		- Description of the mount options.
	Readme		- This file.
	Support		- Description of support (or lack thereof).
	Troubleshooting	- Troubleshooting information.
	Version		- Version of the source tree's distribution.
	ovl.8		- Compiled manual page.
	ovl.m		- Source for the manual page.
	tmac.asn	- Nroff/troff general-purpose macros.

[version @(#) Readme 1.2]
