Manually create library with a script?

[I-G-1-1]

I think it's not important if JF is on linux/windows/macOS, but it's important that the system that mount the drives is on linux and that the filesystem of the drives supports hardlinks.

For example drives (formatted in ext4) and mounted in linux could be passed to whatever OS JF is running using SAMBA.

Using SAMBA permission you could restrict JF to be capable only to read the drives and be sure that JF don't mess up with your hardlinked files.