Importing and Exporting Data

Importing pre-existing data into ESFS

To start using ESFS with existing data, make sure that the root of the data does not contain a /snapshots (see $$SNDIR or ESFS_SNDIR) directory. Then simply move or copy the data into the underlying root directory before mounting the filesystem. (Please make sure the data does not contain elements not supported by ESFS, like symbolic or hard links, or special files.)

It is also easy to arrange for the ESFS filesystem to be mounted at the same point where the data used to be. For example, to start using ESFS on /home/user/Documents, and there are already some files or directories there, move it to, for example, /home/user/Documents-root, create an empty /home/user/Documents directory, and start ESFS using esfs /home/user/Documents-root /home/user/Documents.

Removing ESFS and exporting the data

To stop using ESFS but continue to have access to the data the filesystem contains, umount the filesystem, remove the /snapshots directory and its contents in the underlying root directory, and move or copy the rest of the files and directories to where they will be needed. To continue the example of /home/user/Documents above, remove /home/user/Documents-root/snapshots, remove the empty /home/user/Documents, and rename Documents-root back to Documents.