FUSE (Filesystem in USErspace) is a useful kernel module with an API which allows file systems to be implemented in user space applications, mounted and fully integrated into the system's VFS. Originally implemented for Linux, FUSE API-compatible kernel modules are now available on *BSD, OpenSolaris and MacOS. That said, this was written on a Linux machine so there may be assumptions made about the tools available, their output etc. Feel free to submit info on other *nix-like systems for inclusion if you encounter any inconsistencies. This also goes for corrections and suggestions - if I get the details plain wrong or the code stinks and so on...

Some examples of popular FUSE file systems are ntfs-3g, which provides full NTFS support for the Linux kernel, and sshfs, which mounts remote directories over SSH with SFTP support. FUSE also powers ambitious projects, such as the distributed filesystem, MooseFS as well as providing easy access to proprietary protocols such as MTP.

We can combine this power with the power of Perl using the excellent FUSE API binding.