Coda File System

Coda 6 Update report

From: Steffen Neumann <sneumann_at_TechFak.Uni-Bielefeld.DE>
Date: 29 Jul 2003 18:35:48 +0200
Hi,

We did it, and I have mixed feelings about the new coda 6 release.

The update took me longer than neccessary,
mostly because I had some leftover sticky tags 
in my CVS sources.

Exporting and importing the pdb I had to do manually,
since pdbtool import complained about users for a group 
it couldn't find.

The realms awareness without backwards compatibility 
is a pain in the a**. To exagerate it: why bother
about compatibility with 5.3.x clients, if neither
installed programs (-rpath /coda/vol/gnu/lib)
nor configuration (ln -s /coda/homes/sneumann/.fvwmrc /homes/sneumann)
files work anymore ?!

I'd like to see some soft migration, 
and the coda/realms hack with a zillion links
is no solution, since all links clutter
the /coda root volume on 5.3.x clients.

While new software will be installed into 
the new realms, we don't want to re-compile 
and re-configure our ~20G Software by 40 Users 
and 30 Projects.

Is there a way to overcome the read-only-ness
of 6.0 /coda and place *forward* links like 

	ln -s /coda/aipc1.tech ... .de/homes /coda/homes

into the new clients ? The old clients wouldn't 
see those links like with the realms hack.

Or maybe have something like the realms hack, 
but don't point to that root volume,
but to an intermediate volume:


old 5.3.x:

	Root Volume	Users/Projects
	/coda/homes/
			sneumann/
	/coda/vol/
			gnu/

	(homes and vol are simple directories right now)

New 5.3.x:

	Root Volume	intermediate	Users/Projects
			volume
	/coda
			homes/
					sneumann/
	/coda
			vol/
					gnu/

	( The new intermediates simply hold the mountpoints
	for users/projects )

New 6.x :

	No Root		real Realm		Users/Projects
	/coda
			aipc1.te ... .de/homes
						sneumann/
			aipc1.te ... .de/vol
						gnu/
aditionally:
			faked Realm		Users/Projects
	/coda
			homes->aipc1. ... .de/homes
			vol->aipc1. ... .de/vol

	The two faked realms have different root volumes,
	thus no need for the old soltion backwards-links.

Apart of that things work smoothly so far,
and I am looking forward to see more computer science groups 
in Bielefeld move to coda, so that we start actually *using*(1)
the realms stuff. This will greatly improve acceptance 
within our user base.


Yours,
Steffen

(1) today was the first time I had a look into 
    the testserver, you might want to clean it up a bit;-)
Received on 2003-07-29 12:37:19