Importing/Managing directory trees that contain special block/character device files

Apparently, the issue of importing block/character device files, among
other special files has been discussed previously
(http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=users&msgNo=20119),
but rejected as having security implications. Since the mentioned
thread took place in 2004, has this stance changed?

I have a use case for them, and am looking either for direct support for
importing such files into an SVN repository, or some indirect method of
managing them in SVN, like having a hook-script/trigger create a cpio
archive of the containing directory on checkin, and an extract of the
archive upon checkout.

The use case here is trying to version control multiple copies of an OS
image. A portion of the OS image in each case is a "miniroot", that is
directly bootable over the network, and thus contains block/character
device files. Patches can be applied over time to this "miniroot", so
there is a need to create a tag for each patch application, so we can
check out the proper variant of any particular OS image on network
installations servers as needed.

Can anyone suggest a direct/indirect solution to this use case?

Gordon Marler
gmarler@lehman.com
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Received on Wed Sep 26 21:32:16 2007