[OpenAFS] Undelete support feedback request

Jeffrey Altman jaltman@secure-endpoints.com
Thu, 07 Dec 2006 14:21:00 -0500


Jeffrey Hutzelman wrote:
> 
> 
> On Thursday, December 07, 2006 01:34:50 PM -0500 Jeffrey Altman
> <jaltman@secure-endpoints.com> wrote:
> 
>> I would believe that what would be desired is a non-permanent delete
>> in the r/w volume in which the file/directory would be marked with
>> a new attribute that means deleted but not reclaimed.
>>
>> Files/directories would be automatically reclaimed as they bump up
>> against their quota.
>>
>> New RPCs would be required to support the undelete operations:
>>
>>  * purge all deleted but unclaimed files/dirs
>>
>>  * undelete the specified file/dir
>>
>>  * list files/dirs that can be undeleted
> 
> Actually, we're only talking about files here.  A directory can't be
> deleted in the first place unless it's empty, and the undelete operation
> for an empty directory is the same as the directory creation operation.

A delete operation on a directory filled with files that have been
deleted but not yet reclaimed needs to be marked with the new attribute.
Otherwise, you lose the ability to undelete the files stored within it.

> Life gets interesting when multiple files with the same name have been
> deleted, but maybe you don't care about that (I would).

Not so interesting.  The function to list the entries reports multiple
files with the same name.

> I suspect that the improvement over traditional backup volumes is
> relatively small, and while it would be a "cool" feature, I think there
> are probably others on which the time would be better spent.  Buy hey,
> it's your time, not mine...

I completely agree that there are many more important things for time
to be spent on that are causing users real problems and not just
inconveniences.

Jeffrey Altman