AFS in FreeBSD ...

[Marc G. Fournier-2]

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As Robert has stated in the thread I started last week, he's willing to lend a
hand with getting the kenrel module *as part of* the kernel, but what does it
take to get it to that point?

I just downloaded Jason's initial port attempt, but it is almost a year old:

         <http://www.stradamotorsports.com/~jcw/openafs/>

Has anyone looked at the work he's done so far?  Ignoring the client side for
now, Jason, what would it take to get your work to the point where Robert could
inject it into the core FreeBSD system, as opposed to an 'add on'?  What would
be involved in getting 1.5.x working?


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[Jason C. Wells]

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

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>
>
> As Robert has stated in the thread I started last week, he's willing to lend a
> hand with getting the kenrel module *as part of* the kernel, but what does it
> take to get it to that point?
>
> I just downloaded Jason's initial port attempt, but it is almost a year old:
>
>          <http://www.stradamotorsports.com/~jcw/openafs/>

w00t! I contributed! I contributed!

> Has anyone looked at the work he's done so far?  Ignoring the client side for
> now, Jason, what would it take to get your work to the point where Robert could
> inject it into the core FreeBSD system, as opposed to an 'add on'?  What would
> be involved in getting 1.5.x working?

I really don't have much to add to that discussion.  I am no expert.
That my port compiled and fetched tokens was pure luck.  Sorry I can't
be of more help.

If you need a large commercial airplane designed up, I can get that for
you in a hot second. :)

Regards,
Jason



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[rwatson-2]

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008, Marc G. Fournier wrote:

> As Robert has stated in the thread I started last week, he's willing to lend
> a hand with getting the kenrel module *as part of* the kernel, but what does
> it take to get it to that point?
>
> I just downloaded Jason's initial port attempt, but it is almost a year old:
>
>         <http://www.stradamotorsports.com/~jcw/openafs/>
>
> Has anyone looked at the work he's done so far?  Ignoring the client side
> for now, Jason, what would it take to get your work to the point where
> Robert could inject it into the core FreeBSD system, as opposed to an 'add
> on'?  What would be involved in getting 1.5.x working?

I'm not sure there's a benefit to importing the OpenAFS server into the
FreeBSD src tree, given that it's already well-maintained and fairly
functional as a port.  The main area of potential benefit is, in fact, the
Arla client, which would then be able to track FreeBSD VFS changes, and offers
a relatively static interface to the userland components that could continue
to live in the port.

After chatting with a few of the OpenAFS folks, the current concensus is that
the OpenAFS client kernel parts are a lot more involved than the Arla ones, as
much of the cache manager is implemented there, whereas with Arla it's just a
user file system interface and so a lot less complex.

So I think the short-term plan, if the Arla folks are willing and we can get a
functional Arla module sync'd to 8-CURRENT, would be to get nnpfs into
FreeBSD's src/sys.

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge
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[Marc G. Fournier-2]

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- --On Monday, January 21, 2008 10:42:04 +0000 Robert Watson
<rwatson@...> wrote:

> I'm not sure there's a benefit to importing the OpenAFS server into the
> FreeBSD src tree, given that it's already well-maintained and fairly
> functional as a port.  The main area of potential benefit is, in fact, the
> Arla client, which would then be able to track FreeBSD VFS changes, and
> offers a relatively static interface to the userland components that could
> continue to live in the port.
>
> After chatting with a few of the OpenAFS folks, the current concensus is that
> the OpenAFS client kernel parts are a lot more involved than the Arla ones,
> as much of the cache manager is implemented there, whereas with Arla it's
> just a user file system interface and so a lot less complex.

Not arguing against it, but if OpenAFS puts the cache manager in the client,
and Arla doesn't have it ... what do we lose going with Arla vs OpenAFS?

> So I think the short-term plan, if the Arla folks are willing and we can get
> a functional Arla module sync'd to 8-CURRENT, would be to get nnpfs into
> FreeBSD's src/sys.

What about 6 and 7?  Its going to be, what, a year+ before 8.0 is released ...
seems a long time to send people looking for this sort of thing over to
OpenSolaris or Linux :(  Is this something we're going to either be able to get
into 6/7, or get a port for this to those versions?

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[rwatson-2]

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008, Marc G. Fournier wrote:

>> I'm not sure there's a benefit to importing the OpenAFS server into the
>> FreeBSD src tree, given that it's already well-maintained and fairly
>> functional as a port.  The main area of potential benefit is, in fact, the
>> Arla client, which would then be able to track FreeBSD VFS changes, and
>> offers a relatively static interface to the userland components that could
>> continue to live in the port.
>>
>> After chatting with a few of the OpenAFS folks, the current concensus is
>> that the OpenAFS client kernel parts are a lot more involved than the Arla
>> ones, as much of the cache manager is implemented there, whereas with Arla
>> it's just a user file system interface and so a lot less complex.
>
> Not arguing against it, but if OpenAFS puts the cache manager in the client,
> and Arla doesn't have it ... what do we lose going with Arla vs OpenAFS?

Sorry, maybe I was unclear -- the Arla model, similar to Coda, is that you
have a small kernel module that is basically a user file system service, and a
complex user process that manages shipping objects around the distributed file
system, then exposes them using the kernel module.  This user process is
referred to irregularly as the "cache manager" because its job is really to do
all this Coda/AFS stuff and then plop the results down on the disk cache and
hand them off to the kernel module, which will make them look like a file
system hung off /coda or /afs.  I'm not really familiar with OpenAFS, but my
second-hand understanding is that a lot more of that cache management logic
goes in the kernel module and much less into a user daemon (if any).  So it's
not that OpenAFS puts it in the client, it's that it puts it in the kernel.
Among other things, this means that the Arla/Coda kernel modules are
relatively static over time, since they offer a fairly fixed interface to the
user daemon where the real work happens, but the OpenAFS module changes a lot.

>> So I think the short-term plan, if the Arla folks are willing and we can
>> get a functional Arla module sync'd to 8-CURRENT, would be to get nnpfs
>> into FreeBSD's src/sys.
>
> What about 6 and 7?  Its going to be, what, a year+ before 8.0 is released
> ... seems a long time to send people looking for this sort of thing over to
> OpenSolaris or Linux :( Is this something we're going to either be able to
> get into 6/7, or get a port for this to those versions?

Things go into HEAD first, and 7-STABLE looks a lot like HEAD right now so if
it's updated for HEAD it will basically be updated for 7-STABLE.  The sooner
we get it into HEAD, the sooner it can go into 7-STABLE, and the more easily.
But the key concern here is trying to stop the perpetual falling behind that
nnpfs suffers from due to the pace of FreeBSD VFS development.  The theory is
that if we get it into HEAD, perhaps it will stop falling behind because,
rather than becoming a maze of ifdefs and requiring lots of hacking to update
to a multiple-year-old release, it gets updated as part of the great VFS rush
and requires only minor tweaking when someone notices that something has gone
wrong.

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge
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[Palle Girgensohn]

This discussion is for the *client* part only, right?

Is the server part userland-only and hence easier to port, or is it more
complicated to get the server running on FreeBSD. The only server software
out there in decent shape is OpenAFS, I guess? Milko (arla's companion), it
seems, hasn't left alpha stage.

So for a FreeBSD only setup, arla client and OpenAFS server is the most
probable solution?

Palle
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[rwatson-2]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Palle Girgensohn wrote:

> This discussion is for the *client* part only, right?
>
> Is the server part userland-only and hence easier to port, or is it more
> complicated to get the server running on FreeBSD. The only server software
> out there in decent shape is OpenAFS, I guess? Milko (arla's companion), it
> seems, hasn't left alpha stage.

My understanding, and I've not investigated this personally, is that the
OpenAFS server works fine on FreeBSD as-is.

> So for a FreeBSD only setup, arla client and OpenAFS server is the most
> probable solution?

It sounds like this should already work for FreeBSD 5.x and 6.x, but not yet
for 7.x/8.x.  The viewpoint I'm arguing is that by getting nnpfs in the base
FreeBSD source tree (and I've talked with tol@arla about this in the past), we
get the Arla client running more sustainably on FreeBSD such that people
running the latest release have access to it, and also FreeBSD developers who
run especially premature releases :-).

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge
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[Marc G. Fournier-2]

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- --On Tuesday, January 22, 2008 09:26:19 +0000 Robert Watson
<rwatson@...> wrote:

> Things go into HEAD first, and 7-STABLE looks a lot like HEAD right now so if
> it's updated for HEAD it will basically be updated for 7-STABLE.  The sooner
> we get it into HEAD, the sooner it can go into 7-STABLE, and the more easily.
> But the key concern here is trying to stop the perpetual falling behind that
> nnpfs suffers from due to the pace of FreeBSD VFS development.  The theory is
> that if we get it into HEAD, perhaps it will stop falling behind because,
> rather than becoming a maze of ifdefs and requiring lots of hacking to update
> to a multiple-year-old release, it gets updated as part of the great VFS rush
> and requires only minor tweaking when someone notices that something has gone
> wrong.

Agreed, and thank you for this ... I have no problem with using a port for 6.x,
since 6.x shouldn't be a moving target, once its working, it should be fine ...

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[Marc G. Fournier-2]

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Recommend checking out the arla mailing list (arla-drinkers@...)
archives, where there have already been ports created for both openafs-server
and arla that build fine on FreeBSD 6.x ... I haven't had a chance yet to do
anything with it, beyond build, since there are so many docs to read ... my
project for this coming weekend ...


- --On Tuesday, January 22, 2008 11:30:24 +0100 Palle Girgensohn
<girgen@...> wrote:

> This discussion is for the *client* part only, right?
>
> Is the server part userland-only and hence easier to port, or is it more
> complicated to get the server running on FreeBSD. The only server software
> out there in decent shape is OpenAFS, I guess? Milko (arla's companion), it
> seems, hasn't left alpha stage.
>
> So for a FreeBSD only setup, arla client and OpenAFS server is the most
> probable solution?
>
> Palle

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[Marc G. Fournier-2]

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- --On Tuesday, January 22, 2008 11:21:40 +0000 Robert Watson
<rwatson@...> wrote:

> The viewpoint I'm arguing is that by getting nnpfs in the base
> FreeBSD source tree (and I've talked with tol@arla about this in the past)

I haven't looked too deeply at Arla yet ... I take it its BSD licensed, so that
we can incorporate it?

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[rwatson-2]

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Marc G. Fournier wrote:

> - --On Tuesday, January 22, 2008 11:21:40 +0000 Robert Watson
> <rwatson@...> wrote:
>
>> The viewpoint I'm arguing is that by getting nnpfs in the base FreeBSD
>> source tree (and I've talked with tol@arla about this in the past)
>
> I haven't looked too deeply at Arla yet ... I take it its BSD licensed, so
> that we can incorporate it?

Yes.  In fact, pretty much everything associated with AFS is under a useful
license.

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge
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