Chapter 5. Advanced functions

Virtual file systems (VFS)

A basic OFM feature is VFS, this an abstracted layer over all kinds of archived information (ZIP files, FTP servers, TAR archives, NFS filesystems, SAMBA shares, ISO CD/DVD images, RPM catalogs, etc.), which allows the user to access all the information in these divergent types of filesystems transparently - just like entering an ordinary sub-folder. Krusader supports several virtual file systems:

  • Remote connections VFS: provides the capability of working with a remote connection session (FTP, NFS, Samba, FISH, SFTP) like with local filesystems. It is perfect for complex remote operations and almost as powerful as most standalone GUI remote clients.

  • Archive VFS: allows to browse archives in VFS as it was a folder (ace, arj, bzip2, deb, gzip, iso, lha, rar, rpm, tar, zip and 7-zip).

  • Search VFS: Feed to listbox places the search results in VFS.

  • Synchronizer VFS: places the synchronizer results in VFS.

Actions you perform on the files in VFS are performed on the 'real' files. You do not just delete files from the VFS - you delete them from your hard drive. Limitations: you cannot create folders inside a VFS.

It is possible to keep the folder structure when doing a copy from a virtual folder to a non virtual folder, by selecting the Keep virtual folder structure check box of the copy dialog. Imagine the following virtual folder:

$ file:/home/myhome/mydir1/myfile1

$ file:/home/myhome/mydir1/myfile2

$ file:/home/myhome/mydir2/myfile3

Then do the following steps:

  • go to the virtual folder and select the files

  • select a destination folder (non virtual!)

  • press F5-> copy dialog appears

  • Check Keep virtual folder structure

  • Select /home/myhome/ for base URL

  • Start copy by pressing OK

The result will be:

$ destinationdir/mydir1/myfile1

$ destinationdir/mydir1/myfile2

$ destinationdir/mydir2/myfile3