Re: [patch] pg_copy - a command for reliable WAL archiving

c.f.:

O_TMPFILE (since Linux 3.11)
Create an unnamed temporary file. The pathname argument
specifies a directory; an unnamed inode will be created in
that directory's filesystem. Anything written to the
resulting file will be lost when the last file descriptor is
closed, unless the file is given a name.

O_TMPFILE must be specified with one of O_RDWR or O_WRONLY
and, optionally, O_EXCL. If O_EXCL is not specified, then
linkat(2) can be used to link the temporary file into the
filesystem, making it permanent, using code like the
following:

char path[PATH_MAX];
fd = open("/path/to/dir", O_TMPFILE | O_RDWR,
S_IRUSR | S_IWUSR);

/* File I/O on 'fd'... */

snprintf(path, PATH_MAX, "/proc/self/fd/%d", fd);
linkat(AT_FDCWD, path, AT_FDCWD, "/path/for/file",
AT_SYMLINK_FOLLOW);

In this case, the open() mode argument determines the file
permission mode, as with O_CREAT.

Specifying O_EXCL in conjunction with O_TMPFILE prevents a
temporary file from being linked into the filesystem in the
above manner. (Note that the meaning of O_EXCL in this case
is different from the meaning of O_EXCL otherwise.)

There are two main use cases for O_TMPFILE:

* Improved tmpfile(3) functionality: race-free creation of
temporary files that (1) are automatically deleted when
closed; (2) can never be reached via any pathname; (3) are
not subject to symlink attacks; and (4) do not require the
caller to devise unique names.

* Creating a file that is initially invisible, which is then
populated with data and adjusted to have appropriate
filesystem attributes (chown(2), chmod(2), fsetxattr(2),
etc.) before being atomically linked into the filesystem
in a fully formed state (using linkat(2) as described
above).

O_TMPFILE requires support by the underlying filesystem; only
a subset of Linux filesystems provide that support. In the
initial implementation, support was provided in the ext2,
ext3, ext4, UDF, Minix, and shmem filesystems. XFS support
was added in Linux 3.15.