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OSTree Manual |  |
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OSTree is deeply inspired by git; the core layer is a userspace content-addressed versioning filesystem. It is worth taking some time to familiarize yourself with Git Internals, as this section will assume some knowledge of how git works.
Its object types are similar to git; it has commit objects and content objects. Git has "tree" objects, whereas OSTree splits them into "dirtree" and "dirmeta" objects. But unlike git, OSTree's checksums are SHA256. And most crucially, its content objects include uid, gid, and extended attributes (but still no timestamps).
A commit object contains metadata such as a timestamp, a log message, and most importantly, a reference to a dirtree/dirmeta pair of checksums which describe the root directory of the filesystem.
Also like git, each commit in OSTree can have a parent. It is designed to store a history of your binary builds, just like git stores a history of source control. However, OSTree also makes it easy to delete data, under the assumption that you can regenerate it from source code.
A dirtree contains a sorted array of (filename, checksum) pairs for content objects, and a second sorted array of (filename, dirtree checksum, dirmeta checksum), which are subdirectories.
In git, tree objects contain the metadata such as permissions for their children. But OSTree splits this into a separate object to avoid duplicating extended attribute listings.
Unlike the first three object types which are metadata,
designed to be mmap()ed, the content object
has a separate internal header and payload sections. The
header contains uid, gid, mode, and symbolic link target (for
symlinks), as well as extended attributes. After the header,
for regular files, the content follows.