GmailFS

:"GmailFS should not be confused with GoogleFS, the filesystem created by Google for use in heavyweight servers hard storage, adjusted for performance and large-file handling features."

GmailFS is a virtual file system developed by Richard Jones which uses a Gmail e-mail account for storage. GmailFS is written for Linux, but Windows and Mac OS X ports exist too.

It works by building a filesystem with the Filesystem in Userspace loadable kernel module, and manages communication with Gmail through a special purpose Python library called libgmail. The actual GmailFS is also implemented in Python.

The speed of this filesystem is limited by the speed of the user's Internet connection, and the upload/download speed of the Gmail server. Files can be any size, and are stored as (segmented) attachments.

Note that Gmail's [http://mail.google.com/mail/help/terms_of_use.html terms of use] impose no restrictions that would make use of GmailFS a direct violation of the Service agreement. However, they state that "Google also reserves the right to modify, suspend or discontinue the Service with or without notice at any time and without any liability to you" and "Google reserves the right to refuse service to anyone at any time without notice for any reason". As a result, Google would be well within its right to disable accounts used for GmailFS at any time and without warning; Google can and has suspended accounts for the sort of excess activity generated by GmailFS.fact|date=January 2008 Consequently, GmailFS should not be considered reliable for backup purposes. Furthermore, the " [http://www.google.com/mail/help/program_policies.html Program Policies] " prohibit the user to "Reformat or frame any portion of the web pages that are part of the Gmail Service" which is arguably violated by use of GmailFS, which, after all, "reformats" documents transferred via HTTP ("web pages") into data accessible via FUSE.

Some users of GmailFS use filesystem-level encryption to protect the information they store with it.

ee also

*FUSE for virtual filesystems
*Gmail
*GMail Drive - a similar virtual filesystem for Windows
*PhpGmailDrive

External links

* [http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/gmail-filesystem/gmail-filesystem.html GmailFS official site]
* [http://labs.fon.com/fonbackup/ FON Backup]
* [http://libgmail.sourceforge.net/ libgmail homepage]
* [http://gdisk.sourceforge.net/ gDisk for Mac OS X]