Ok, so why not fix that in unionfs? An option so that holes in the
overlay file let through data from the underlying file sounds like it
would be generally useful, and quite easy to implement.
If not unionfs, a "union-tmpfs" combination would be good. Many
filesystems aren't well suited to being the overlay filesystem -
adding to the implementation's complexity - but a modified tmpfs could
be very well suited.
-- Jamie
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