There is a new Windows Coda Client now available, the Beta-3
version.  You may find this this new windows client at

  ftp://coda.cs.cmu.edu:/pub/coda/winnt/ntcoda-b3.exe

This release is a quick kernel bug fix for the beta-2 distribution.
There are no changes to the other parts of coda.  Userland is
version 6.0.16.

I would appreciate people trying this release and sending me a report.
I have found that the VLC media player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc)
works well with the "big file" support provided by the beta-3 release.

The following is the Windows part of the 6.0.16 release announcement.
In case you didn't read that far in the 6.0.16 announcement, here
it is again. (Slightly modified for the beta-3 release.)

--------------

This Windows client release includes:
    1) bug fixes:  symbolic links should work (but repairs do not work.)
    2) new feature:  "big file" support (see below)
    3) newest release of OSR's fsdk that includes some bug fixes.

The major change is for "big file" support.  First, the only
implementation of "big file support" is in the Windows beta-2 release.
This doesn't mean that it won't migrate to the Linux/BSD releases
some day.  The Windows implementation was kind of a quick check out the
concept implementation.  As such, we would like feedback on how it works
for you.

Next, what is "big file support"?  Well, it is assumed that most
venus caches have a relatively small cache, say in the range 500Mb or
smaller.  (The default value for the Windows beta-2 is 100Mb.)
So, how would one be able to put their favorite large media file
in Coda and use it?  Many media files (DVDs) are much larger than a
standard venus cache.  This brings up two problems in most cases:
    1)  the file won't fit in cache
    2)  even if it fit, it takes a long time to move the file to cache.

How does big file support solve both of these?   There is a tool,
mkcodabf, that takes a large file from some place (your media file)
and produces a tree of small files, each hunk is currently a multiple
of 1Mb in size.  The tree could be up to two directories deep.  The
last thing written in the top level directory is a file named
_Coda_BigFile_ that contains the meta data for the directory tree:
    total number of bytes, number of directory levels, hunk size
    maximum hunks (files) per directory, ...

When the Windows kernel module sees the magic file (_Coda_BigFile_),
it returns information that makes the top level directory look like
a big regular file.  The rest of the system and userland just see
one big file.  It is marked read only so that we preserve write
semantics.

Now, a media player can now read and play this big file.  And to
support the media stream, the semantics of the vget upcall to
venus changed just a bit so it now fetches the data into the
cache, but returns immediately after scheduling the fetch.  So,
when the file is opened, the first hunk is fetched and the
process is blocked until the first hunk is in the cache.  After
the first one arrives, the kernel module vgets the next sequential
hunk.  At this point, the process can read from the first hunk.
Once it moves into the next hunk, the following hunk is fetched
via vget.   So, while the media player is playing one hunk, the
next sequential hunk is being fetched by venus so that when the
media player needs the next hunk, it is in the cache ready to be
read and there is no interruption in the data flow.  Random access
is still supported, except the read to a random location may have
to wait for the hunk to be fetched.

Venus doesn't see the directory tree as a single file, just the
users of the Coda file system.

Coda-6.0.16 includes the mkcodabf program as well as a manual page
explaining its use.

--------------  Additional information --------------

When one "deletes" a big file, it only deletes the big file attribute.
To do that, the coda kernel module deletes the _Coda_BigFile_ file in
the "big file's directory" and then the full file tree becomes visible
to the client.


-- 
Phil Nelson                       NetBSD: http://www.NetBSD.org
e-mail: phil@cs.wwu.edu           Coda: http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu
http://www.cs.wwu.edu/nelson