From owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 31 20:19:34 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4C00A1065674 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:19:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rmacklem@uoguelph.ca) Received: from moe.cs.uoguelph.ca (moe.cs.uoguelph.ca [131.104.94.198]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E41DD8FC08 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:19:33 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rmacklem@uoguelph.ca) Received: from muncher.cs.uoguelph.ca (muncher.cs.uoguelph.ca [131.104.91.102]) by moe.cs.uoguelph.ca (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id m6VKJWhs024668 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:19:32 -0400 Received: from localhost (rmacklem@localhost) by muncher.cs.uoguelph.ca (8.11.7p3+Sun/8.11.6) with ESMTP id m6VKUb426547 for ; Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:30:37 -0400 (EDT) X-Authentication-Warning: muncher.cs.uoguelph.ca: rmacklem owned process doing -bs Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:30:37 -0400 (EDT) From: Rick Macklem X-X-Sender: rmacklem@muncher.cs.uoguelph.ca To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.63 on 131.104.94.198 Subject: NFSv4 Referrals, was Re: NFSv4 client and server... X-BeenThere: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Filesystems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:19:34 -0000 I see that, along with what they call Mirror mounts, the OpenSolaris team is building Referral support into their client. I put some code for Referrals in a long time ago, but it is incomplete and untested. (A referral can be thought of as a symbolic link/pointer to a file system on another server.) What is needed is an entry in the local file system that can be recognized as an nfsv4 referral and stores the referral data (just something like "otherserver:/path"). As a dirty hack, I had thought of using a symbolic link, but with a funny set of mode bits. (Local access on the server would just see a symbolic link with funny mode bits and no extant file, but the nfs server would recognize it as a referral and use it.) But there must be a better way? Any ideas? rick