[Unionfs] Loop as a read-write branch

[Vladimir A. Pavlov]

Hi, guys!

First of all, thank you for UnionFS. I have just started using it and I
like it very much.

I'm going to make a UnionFS-based package manager and the most annoying
thing is that I must have two different partitions, one being the root
while another being the root overlay. I don't like this so I'm
searching for other ways of using unionfs for the purpose.

One of them is using a loop device instead of a separate partition as a
read-write branch. But I'm really in question whether the suggested
scheme is safe enough, so I'm asking you for the help.

The suggested scheme is as follows

$ mount -t ext2 -o loop /home/me/fs.img /mnt/loop
$ mount -t unionfs -o dirs=/mnt/loop:/=ro union /mnt/union

where /home/me/fs.img is an empty ext2 image while /mnt and /home
belong to the root partition. Is the scheme is safe?

Would such a scheme be safe if /home is a separate partition?

-- 
Nothing but perfection
pv