Coda distributed file system
version 4.6.0 now available
http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu

Coda is an advanced experimental distributed file system with features
such as server replication and disconnected operation for laptops (see the
WWW site).

Release 4.6.0 is mainly a bug fix release with changes since 4.4.4
detailed in the ChangeLog file available on the WWW site and in the root
of the sources.  The major improvements in this release are:

 - no more server hangs on first time startup of a server
 - RPC2 packet buffers are now checked for sanity and should not 
   cause segfaults when bad
 - many thread stack overflows fixed
 - linux 2.1 kernel code is now MUCH more stable (many changes)
 - a coda-linux kernel package for easy module building
 - Linux Debian compilation fixed
 - major improvements in debugging features
 - preliminary support for NT & 95 Coda servers
 - very preliminary support for Win 95 clients (see below)
 - initial support for NetBSD packages

Stability: we believe this release is a major improvement over the
previous one.  Coda 4.6.0 on Linux, FreeBSD and NetBSD is very usable as
an experimental file system.  The development of Coda is largely done
within /coda and many of us keep email and other vital files in /coda.  We
have confusing situations, but have not lost any files.

Platforms:

Linux (i86 and sparc):

Kernel 2.0 -- kernel code included in coda-linux package; this code is not
much changed from 4.4.4: it is stable in the sense of not crashing your
system, but is known to have odd bugs due to an incomplete implementation
of the Coda semantics

Kernel 2.1 -- kernel code is included in the Linux kernel, HOWEVER, that
code lags our current version, so you should use the kernel code
provided in the 4.6.0 coda-kernel package instead (we are holding off
submitting patches to avoid overloading Linus).  This code closely
follows the Coda semantics and is in constant use by most of us, but is
less extensively exercised than the 2.0 code and may still, rarely,
crash systems.

User-level issues: we no longer support libc5; it may still work just
fine.  The Coda tarball compiles under Debian and there will be a Debian
maintainer for Coda at some point (details to be announced).  Packages for
Red Hat 5.0 are available and appear to work fine on Red Hat 5.1.

NetBSD 1.3:

NetBSD benefits from the general bugfixes and is working very well both as
a server and as a client.  NetBSD 1.3 packages are available.

FreeBSD:

FreeBSD mostly works very well; however, there is a bug which
occasionally crashes the client cache manager.  Tarballs for 2.2.5 are
available and packages will be available.  We apologize that for project
reasons we will not be able to adequately test 2.2.6 versions until
August although 4.4.4 was known to work just as well on 2.2.5 and 2.2.6.

Win32:

Preliminary support for running Coda servers on Windows NT and Windows 95. 
In this release, the Win32 port is only suitable for developers to
experiment with.  No kernel-mode code is needed for the Coda server.  All
building is done with cross-compilation using Cygwin32 from Red Hat Linux
(cross-build RPMs are available); see README.nt in the root of the source
tree for details.

Windows 95:

Very preliminary support for a client on Windows 95 is included in 4.6.0. 
To use this, you need to have the entire Microsoft toolchain necessary to
build VxDs for the kernel-level components of Coda.  In addition, you need
a special cross-compilation environment for the user-level components
which is available for Red Hat Linux from our website.

Note on Windows ports: we hope that by making this code available we will
encourage developers to explore it and perhaps join in development.  It is
not usable as a filesystem yet.

We thank many net contributors for patches, but above all Michael Callahan
for developing and contributing the Windows 95 port as well as continuing
to be an invaluable resource for our group. 

Please join our bazaar!

Signed:
 
The CMU Coda team

Peter J. Braam		development leader
Shafeeq Sinnamohideen 	extensive networking code improvements
Jan Harkes		improvements to the client and RVM
Bob Baron		BSD support
Henry Pierce		release engineering
Satya			head of the group vital for past, present and
			future