Hacking Gmail

Chapter 16 — Using GmailFS 217

Replace the XXXXXwith a hard-to-guess string. This string, the name of the file

system, must be weird and difficult to guess, because (as you will see) people can

corrupt the system by sending you mail with that name in the subject line.

Mounting GmailFS from fstab

Linux machines have a file called /etc/fstab, which contains the details of all of

the drives and partitions the system can see. You can add GmailFS to the fstab

file to make the drive a permanent addition to your system.

To use fstab, place an entry inside /etc/fstabthat looks like this:

/usr/local/bin/gmailfs.py /gmailfs gmailfs noauto,

fsname=XXXXX

Again, replace the XXXXXwith the name you wish to give the file system. You will

probably need root access to add things to the fstabfile. Once the line has been

added, reboot the machine.

Passing Commands to the File System

With the commands passed in the previous section, you now have a file system

mounted at /gmailfs. So, from the command line you can use cd /gmailfs

and then use any of the normal shell commands:ls,mkdir,rm, and so on. For

all intents and purposes, the GmailFS is just the same as if it were a 1 gigabyte

hard disk.

Copying files to and from a GmailFS directory is pretty quick, depending of

course on the speed of your Internet connection, but running lsto get a directory

listing takes a very long time if you have lots of mail. To understand why, take a

look at how GmailFS works.

Using Multiple GmailFS Drives

Because you are giving the GmailFS system a specific, hard-to-guess name, denoted in the com-
mand line by the fsname=parameter, you are actually able to run more than one file system
from the same Gmail account. You can mount as many as you like, as long as each one has a
different name.