[OpenAFS-devel] Fileserver as Masters Thesis

[Horst Birthelmer]

On Sep 19, 2005, at 3:51 PM, Niklas Edmundsson wrote:
>
> We see two roads to investigate:
>
> Either do an implementation that uses an existing filesystem like the
> current NAMEI fileserver, or implement an AFS-server-specific file
> system.
>

What came to mind (kind of instantaneous) was the idea Jeffrey  
Hutzelman had quite a while ago,
implementing a fileserver which 'exports' (just like NFS) some  
directories. This has it's drawbacks:
- you can only have one partition
- maybe only one volume
- you can't do a vos move to or from that fileserver (or maybe  
not ... if you think of something ;-) )

Just a quick idea ...

> Designing/implementing a new filesystem is a lot of work, and has a  
> lot
> of "reinventing the wheel"-feeling to it. You need good arguments to
> follow this path, and it would be preferable if there is existing  
> work to
> leverage this upon. Licensing becomes an issue here.
>
> Obviously, we welcome all kinds of input on this.
>
> Also, any pointer to documentation, previous work etc. regarding  
> the AFS
> fileserver is welcome. We're not that clued on what subtle features
> there might be that the fileserver needs to support.

Nikke, you know where to find the documentation for AFS, don't you?


Horst