(Illustration by Gaich Muramatsu)
Coda Filesystem Version 4.4.0 Linux We are pleased to announce version 4.4.0 of Coda for Linux. Coda now comes with setup scripts, support for 2.1 kernels, improved administration and many little bugs fixed (many remain too). Below you can find out where to download the packages, as well as pointers to the Coda web site - where there is documentation and email discussion lists. Coda is an experimental distributed file system, with many advanced features. It is freely available, like NFS. It functions much like AFS in being a "stateful" file system. Coda and AFS cache files persistently on your local machine to improve performance. But Coda goes a step further than AFS by letting you access the cached files when there is no available network, viz. disconnected laptops and network outages. Also Coda has server replication and bandwidth adaptation. In Coda, both the cache manager and server are outside the kernel which makes them easier to experiment with, but a kernel filesystem module is needed on the clients. To get more information on Coda: http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu There is a wealth of documents, papers, theses there. There is also a good introduction to the Coda File System in http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/ljpaper/lj.html WARNING: Coda is an experimental system. It runs kernel code and priviliged servers and is known to have bugs. Coda is not nearly as reliable yet as NFS, use you should consider it experimental your own risk. (I do keep my entire life including email etc in Coda, so it's somewhat useable.) Coda is currently available for several OS's and platforms: linux 2.0: i386 & sparc linux 2.1: i386 & sparc Freebsd-2.2.5: i386 NetBSD 1.2: i386 NetBSD 1.3: i386 The relevant sources, binaries, and docs can be found in ftp://ftp.coda.cs.cmu.edu/pub/coda/ For clients you need: coda-debug-client-{libc,glibc} coda-debug-kernel-2.0.32-module (RH5.0) or src/coda-linux-4.4.0.tgz (to build your own kernel module see README.kernel-module) For servers: coda-debug-server-{libc,glibc} For a backup controller: coda-debug-backup-{libc,glibc} We intend to come out with new releases often, not daily. We don't wish to slight any os/platform not mentioned above. We are just limited in our resources as to what we can support internally. The only problem is that Coda has a light weight process package. (PS. We are working on a FreeBsd 3.0 release and on Windows 95 and NT.) Our main emphasis is on quality and performance improvements, better security and more scalability. There are several mailing lists @coda.cs.cmu.edu that discuss coda most important are: coda-announce and linux-coda. We are going to rename linux-coda to be OS neutral, since it is mainly Coda we want to discuss. We appreciate comments, feedback, bug reports, bug fixes, enhancements, etc. If you are interested in doing work on Coda, get in touch with me. Peter Braam Senior Systems Scientist Coda Project braam_at_cs.cmu.eduReceived on 1998-03-18 19:30:55