Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 17:37:58 -0400 From: "David E. Cross" <crossd@cs.rpi.edu> To: Robert Watson <robert+freebsd@cyrus.watson.org> Cc: "David E. Cross" <crossd@cs.rpi.edu>, freebsd-afs@FreeBSD.ORG, crossd@cs.rpi.edu Subject: Re: a new beginning Message-ID: <199904292137.RAA00355@cs.rpi.edu> In-Reply-To: Message from Robert Watson <robert@cyrus.watson.org> of "Thu, 29 Apr 1999 07:27:21 EDT." <Pine.BSF.3.96.990429071718.8896D-100000@fledge.watson.org>
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> Given the availability of Arla, is there a reason we still want to port > the Transarc AFS client? Wouldn't it be more productive to get really > bored and write a BSD-licensed AFS server for FreeBSD, making FreeBSD the > ultimate free network server platform? :) This wouldn't necessarily > involve learning FreeBSD VM/VFS because you don't have to do the Transarc > direct inode-open thing, and if you really wanted to the Arla module could > easily be made to do that. They already have the initial framework for a > server (all the backend RPC call names and some setup and examples). > > If there is interest in writing a free AFS server, I may have a month of > time I could devote to it this summer. My suspicion is that this would be > > an incredibly worthwhile project, given the availability of a free client > already. No doubt the KTH folk are interested in doing this already, but > last I spoke to them (Assar was here in Pittsburgh about a month ago) they > hadn't started yet. We already have Quorum code that was originally > intended for Coda, but hasn't gone in there yet (BSD-licensed), and there > are some folk around here who have various components that could go into > it, hopefully all also liberally licensed. Hmm... that is something that I had not considered. I do use Arla to a very limited extent (just getting started with it). Last I had heard arla sat on the host as a virtual NFS server, so access to /afs/... would get mapped as a NFS request to arla, who would then make the call to the AFS server itself. Is this still true? Does Arla do block caching, or is it still whole file? Finally, how stable is Arla, how likely am I to panic a Kernel running with arla? I ask since we wish to make our department FreeBSD machines AFS-ized. I certainly think this is a very worthwhile project, as is the DCE/DFS project. I am just trying to decide in my mind what is a better use of my time, writing from scratch something that already exists and is 'close' to working, or trying to understand someone elses code and bend it to fit a model it doesn't presently. -- David Cross | email: crossd@cs.rpi.edu Systems Administrator/Research Programmer | Web: http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~crossd Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, | Ph: 518.276.2860 Department of Computer Science | Fax: 518.276.4033 I speak only for myself. | WinNT:Linux::Linux:FreeBSD To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-afs" in the body of the message
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