The open_by_handle_at() and name_to_handle() functions were added to Linux 2.6.38, and allow opening files by a file handle instead of path traversal. This may be useful for HPC applications to reduce loading on the metadata server from repeated path traversal.

There is some chance this feature already works on Lustre, due to the re-use of the NFS exportfs_encode_fh() and exportfs_decode_fh() functions. This code needs a regression test in Lustre to verify it is working correctly, along with documentation in the user manual.