From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Dec 9 15:16:19 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 774A016A4CE; Thu, 9 Dec 2004 15:16:19 +0000 (GMT) Received: from fledge.watson.org (fledge.watson.org [204.156.12.50]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id ECFB043D2D; Thu, 9 Dec 2004 15:16:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from robert@fledge.watson.org) Received: from fledge.watson.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by fledge.watson.org (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id iB9FDnpW055298; Thu, 9 Dec 2004 10:13:49 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from robert@fledge.watson.org) Received: from localhost (robert@localhost)iB9FDnji055295; Thu, 9 Dec 2004 15:13:49 GMT (envelope-from robert@fledge.watson.org) Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 15:13:49 +0000 (GMT) From: Robert Watson X-Sender: robert@fledge.watson.org To: Scott Long In-Reply-To: <41B85EF6.5090008@freebsd.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: Boris Popov cc: Poul-Henning Kamp cc: arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: [HEADSUP] IPX and NWFS to be killed in -current. X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 15:16:19 -0000 On Thu, 9 Dec 2004, Scott Long wrote: > >>FYI, I have a substantial work in progress in the netperf branch to bring > >>fine-grained locking to IPX/SPX, as well as to clean up a number of > >>elements of its implementions (for example, moving the the queue(9) > >>macros. While I'm currently a bit stalled on it due to being overwhelmed > >>at work (etc), my hope was to get the Giant-free IPX pieces working early > >>next year. I think there's a reference to this on the SMPng page showing > > > > These are perfect news. As the former active maintainer of IPX > > protocol stack and the author of NWFS I'm receive notable amount of complains > > about IPX support in 5.X as people upgrade boxes from 4.X. For some > > people it works but nwfs doesn't and vise versa. > > > > Addressing phk's request about removal: there was exactly 93 > > questions related to ipx/nwfs in November. This indeed encourages me to > > fix them. Although, I can't promise anything at this point because > > earning on life doesn't left much free time these days. > > This is wonderful news too! If you have any questions or need help with > testing, please don't hesitate to ask. The elements I can easily work on here are: - IPX cleanup and locking, in particular, normalizing the data structures, moving to queue(9) from custom lists, locking of the pcb lists and pcbs, and interactions with socket locking. The basic IPX pieces should fall out pretty easily; I need to look more closely at SPX before passing judgement there. - Writing some simple IPX/SPX regression suites for loopback traffic and ethernet traffic. I'm less qualified, and insufficiently available, to work with the NCP protocol pieces, or the file system pieces, and other hands there would be most welcome. As with the NFS client, smb client, etc, there's not an immediate pressure to get netncp and nwfs able to run without the Giant lock, especially since netncp doesn't use socket upcalls, but as Giant pushes down on VFS, it's probably an increasingly good idea to do that. I anticipate being available to start working on IPX/SPX again sometime in late January or early Feburary, although I may be able to start on the regression tests to diagnose any current problems a bit before that. Robert N M Watson FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects robert@fledge.watson.org Principal Research Scientist, McAfee Research