overlay4u - Tools for dealing with overlayfs in ubuntu (Work in Progress)

Simple way to create an overlayfs in ubuntu within Python.

Warnings!

overlay4u requires root. Be sure you're aware of that. It's still very much a work in progress so please use with caution and hopefully on VM that you do not care about.

Caveats

overlay4u is not currently being designed for anything but Ubuntu 12.04. At this time that's the first priority.

Currently Working

• Mounting works! (Tested and works)
• Creating a table of mounted filesystems
• Unmounting

Using overlay4u

Create an overlay at dest:

import overlay4u

overlay = overlay4u.mount('dest', 'lower', 'upper')

overlay.unmount()

If the destination already has something mounted it won't mount again:

import overlay4u

overlay1 = overlay4u.mount('dest', 'lower', 'upper')

# This will throw an error.
overlay2 = overlay4u.mount('dest', 'lower', 'upper')

List all overlays:

import overlay4u

overlays = overlay4u.list()
# Overlays is now a list of all the currently mounted overlays on your
# system

Grab a previously mounted overlayfs:

import overlay4u

overlay = overlay4u.get('/some_mount_point')

That's all. It's a relatively simple tool.