Mastering Linux Kernel Development

pipefs

Pipes and FIFOs are created and managed by a special filesystem called pipefs. It registers with VFS as a special filesystem. The following is a code excerpt from fs/pipe.c:

static struct file_system_type pipe_fs_type = {           .name = "pipefs",           .mount = pipefs_mount,           .kill_sb = kill_anon_super,};static int __init init_pipe_fs(void){        int err = register_filesystem(&pipe_fs_type);        if (!err) {                pipe_mnt = kern_mount(&pipe_fs_type);                if (IS_ERR(pipe_mnt)) {                        err = PTR_ERR(pipe_mnt);                        unregister_filesystem(&pipe_fs_type);                }      }      return err;}fs_initcall(init_pipe_fs);

It integrates pipe files into VFS by enumerating an inode instance representing each pipe; this allows applications to engage common file APIs read and write. The inode structure contains ...