From owner-freebsd-fs Tue Feb 17 01:09:24 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id BAA11540 for freebsd-fs-outgoing; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 01:09:24 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de [137.226.30.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id BAA11505 for ; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 01:09:12 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from kuku@gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE) Received: (from kuku@localhost) by gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA14813 for freebsd-fs@freebsd.org; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 09:11:02 GMT (envelope-from kuku) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 09:11:02 GMT From: Christoph Kukulies Message-Id: <199802170911.JAA14813@gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE> To: freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: multi-version FS Sender: owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Yesterday I had a visit from some sales people of Rational Technologies who are offering a version control/management under NT (named ClearCase) which is kind of GUI based (explorer centric) and which establishes a multi version FS under NT (they say 'developed by the people who designed the VMS file system' - well, I cannot judge if this can be considered a big plus :-). Anyway, is there such a thing as a MVFS (multi version FS) under FreeBSD and would it be worth taking a look at it ? -- Chris Christoph P. U. Kukulies kuku@gil.physik.rwth-aachen.de To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-fs" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-fs Tue Feb 17 02:12:39 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id CAA19153 for freebsd-fs-outgoing; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 02:12:39 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from smtp03.primenet.com (smtp03.primenet.com [206.165.6.133]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id CAA19142 for ; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 02:12:34 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tlambert@usr07.primenet.com) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp03.primenet.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id DAA06780; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 03:12:32 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr07.primenet.com(206.165.6.207) via SMTP by smtp03.primenet.com, id smtpd006766; Tue Feb 17 03:12:23 1998 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr07.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id DAA09362; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 03:12:21 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199802171012.DAA09362@usr07.primenet.com> Subject: Re: multi-version FS To: kuku@gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (Christoph Kukulies) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 10:12:21 +0000 (GMT) Cc: freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <199802170911.JAA14813@gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE> from "Christoph Kukulies" at Feb 17, 98 09:11:02 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > Yesterday I had a visit from some sales people of Rational Technologies > who are offering a version control/management under NT (named ClearCase) > which is kind of GUI based (explorer centric) and which establishes a > multi version FS under NT (they say 'developed by the people who > designed the VMS file system' - well, I cannot judge if this can be > considered a big plus :-). Anyway, is there such a thing as a > MVFS (multi version FS) under FreeBSD and would it be worth > taking a look at it ? Versioning operates by creating a namespace incursion into the globbing namespace. The biggest problem with a multiversion FS is that globbing on NT, 95, DOS, and VMS systems is done in the directory lookup system call instead of in the shell. This is a problem for BSD in many way: 1) BSD must push irrelevent data across the user-kernel interface. This makes BSD much higher overhead in all but the "all files" case. 2) For a multiversion FS to function, the file name without the version identifier means "the most recent version". BSD should probably support a kernel globbing mechanism to avoid wasteful dirent transfers. To do this would require modifications to nearly any program that can take file arguments, and be real tough to deal with. Without a kernel globbing mechanism, you could present the most recent version as the name; however, you will fail to get what you want when you say "ls *.c", unless you hack the shell to understand any name without a semicolon to be understood as being suffixed with ";*". Even so, this means you need to prevent the use of semicolon in naming, except as it preceeds the numeric tail. This quickly becaomes a huge problem. You *could* make the most recent version behave as a hard link to the name without the numeric tail. In effect, you would be creating a variant symbolic link type. This is less satisfying than the kernel globbing incursion fix because it breaks some aspects of versioning, but it's probably sufficient for what you need. Doing this trades a namespace incursion for the most recent version of the file (the numeric tail is not presented). This has an impact on the ability to do things like renaming to a specific version number, as frequently occurs in VMS common usage, With this caveat, a stacking FS layer that implements VOP_READDIR againt an underlying FS, and forces a bypass on everything but directory entry manipulation VOP's, would be pretty trivial, if FS stacking worked reliably. You would probably also want to add a user space purge program that understood the semantics, and perhaps a new VOP to allow you to set the limits on how many versions you save (this would actually be better as a tunable in a hidden file on the volume root of the remounted FS. Basically: / | \ | \ /control /root <- presented as root to consumer This is the same way I've described quotas working in the past, though with the quotas, you would probably want to incur into the root directory namespace instead of pushing the hierarchy one. This is because you may want to apply quitas to existing FS's that you couldn't push dow. The namespace issues of a versioning FS layer are so complex that you would probably eat the overhead of always having the code on on an FS where you plan to use it. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-fs" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-fs Tue Feb 17 02:26:57 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id CAA21015 for freebsd-fs-outgoing; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 02:26:57 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from ns1.yes.no (ns1.yes.no [195.119.24.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id CAA21003 for ; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 02:26:55 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from eivind@bitbox.follo.net) Received: from bitbox.follo.net (bitbox.follo.net [194.198.43.36]) by ns1.yes.no (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id KAA04378; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 10:26:53 GMT Received: (from eivind@localhost) by bitbox.follo.net (8.8.6/8.8.6) id LAA13626; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 11:26:52 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: <19980217112651.42326@follo.net> Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 11:26:51 +0100 From: Eivind Eklund To: Terry Lambert Cc: freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: multi-version FS References: <199802170911.JAA14813@gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE> <199802171012.DAA09362@usr07.primenet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.89.1i In-Reply-To: <199802171012.DAA09362@usr07.primenet.com>; from Terry Lambert on Tue, Feb 17, 1998 at 10:12:21AM +0000 Sender: owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, Feb 17, 1998 at 10:12:21AM +0000, Terry Lambert wrote: > BSD should probably support a kernel globbing mechanism to avoid > wasteful dirent transfers. To do this would require modifications > to nearly any program that can take file arguments, and be real > tough to deal with. I want this. It should be coupled with a more generic argument parser, and have some way for shells to add hooks to do the globbing using their local policies (the same glob's mean different things in different shells). It would be a far step away from the way Unix has always done it, but it would be a step in the right direction. If we started off with just supporting this, not mandating it, we'd have done an architectural leap. However, I'm not certain it is feasible in terms of effort - just fixing the shells to use this method is likely to be a huge amount of work. Eivind, who's always been bugged by the way Unix shells handle globbing - you're NOT supposed to glob in "-rf" as a FLAG. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-fs" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-fs Tue Feb 17 02:28:51 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id CAA21356 for freebsd-fs-outgoing; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 02:28:51 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (critter.freebsd.dk [195.8.129.14]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id CAA21346 for ; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 02:28:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk) Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (localhost.cybercity.dk [127.0.0.1]) by critter.freebsd.dk (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA02733; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 11:24:11 +0100 (CET) To: Terry Lambert cc: kuku@gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (Christoph Kukulies), freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: multi-version FS In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 17 Feb 1998 10:12:21 GMT." <199802171012.DAA09362@usr07.primenet.com> Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 11:24:11 +0100 Message-ID: <2731.887711051@critter.freebsd.dk> From: Poul-Henning Kamp Sender: owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org In message <199802171012.DAA09362@usr07.primenet.com>, Terry Lambert writes: >> Yesterday I had a visit from some sales people of Rational Technologies >> who are offering a version control/management under NT (named ClearCase) >> which is kind of GUI based (explorer centric) and which establishes a >> multi version FS under NT (they say 'developed by the people who >> designed the VMS file system' - well, I cannot judge if this can be >> considered a big plus :-). Anyway, is there such a thing as a >> MVFS (multi version FS) under FreeBSD and would it be worth >> taking a look at it ? > > >Versioning operates by creating a namespace incursion into the globbing >namespace. > >The biggest problem with a multiversion FS is that globbing on >NT, 95, DOS, and VMS systems is done in the directory lookup system >call instead of in the shell. The biggest problem with putting your version control in the kernel (as a filesystem or otherwise) is that it doesn't belong there. If somebody thinks they need the kernel in order to implement version control, they are 100% out of their mind or so fixated on mainframe methods that they should be allowed to wither in a badly lit corner of the IT industry. Check out www.perforce.com instead for a MUCH better solution to the version control problem. And before you ask, yes I >do< speak from experience gained the expensive way. -- Poul-Henning Kamp FreeBSD coreteam member phk@FreeBSD.ORG "Real hackers run -current on their laptop." "Drink MONO-tonic, it goes down but it will NEVER come back up!" To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-fs" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-fs Tue Feb 17 04:13:11 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id EAA12525 for freebsd-fs-outgoing; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 04:13:11 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from fssrv.fachschaften.tu-muenchen.de (fssrv.fachschaften.tu-muenchen.de [129.187.176.20]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id EAA12494 for ; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 04:12:59 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from rhuber@Fachschaften.TU-Muenchen.DE) Received: from eddie.fachschaften.tu-muenchen.de by fssrv.fachschaften.tu-muenchen.de with SMTP id AA06529 (5.67a8/IDA-1.5 for ); Tue, 17 Feb 1998 13:12:44 +0100 Received: by eddie.fachschaften.tu-muenchen.de (5.67a8/Ultrix3.0-C) id AA07980; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 13:12:42 +0100 Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 13:12:40 +0100 (MET) From: "Reini (Reinhold Huber)" To: Christoph Kukulies Cc: freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: multi-version FS In-Reply-To: <199802170911.JAA14813@gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Hi there On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, Christoph Kukulies wrote: > Yesterday I had a visit from some sales people of Rational Technologies > who are offering a version control/management under NT (named ClearCase) > which is kind of GUI based (explorer centric) and which establishes a > multi version FS under NT (they say 'developed by the people who > designed the VMS file system' - well, I cannot judge if this can be > considered a big plus :-). Anyway, is there such a thing as a > MVFS (multi version FS) under FreeBSD and would it be worth > taking a look at it ? I worked as a student with Atria ClearCase, and it sounds very much the same. OS environment was Solaris (on sparc). The ClearCase Software offered the *whole* "repository" (CVS word) as a special device to be mounted via NFS. In this FS, any file can be accessed with a @@/main[/[/ ... ]]/ syntax. ls only shows the filenames, and with the file name alone, the version specified by a set of selection rules, which is set up by the user, is shown. This allows developers to work on the same development files rather than checking them out to different working directories, and avoids problems that can come up when reintegrating the different directories with tools of the revision control software used. I think it does _not_ belong in the kernel, but it requires a very intelligent replacement for nfsd. Excuse me for not knowing the right word here. nfsd is not replaced, it is still used for server filesystems (homes, software, ...). This whole thing is something for "user" software, not the OS, I think. Maybe Atria or Rational Technologies has patent(s) on that technology, then it is difficult to make something like that anyway. Perhaps there are developers in the FreeBSD area who are interested in using software like this not only on their other platforms, but with intel, too. If the manufacturer ported ClearCase by himself for FreeBSD, then this would be the reason for these firm(s) to use FreeBSD for their intel machines. Greetings, Reinhold Huber To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-fs" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-fs Tue Feb 17 04:24:59 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id EAA14431 for freebsd-fs-outgoing; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 04:24:59 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (gilberto.physik.rwth-aachen.de [137.226.30.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id EAA14285 for ; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 04:24:19 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from kuku@gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE) Received: (from kuku@localhost) by gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE (8.8.7/8.8.7) id MAA15651; Tue, 17 Feb 1998 12:26:07 GMT (envelope-from kuku) Message-ID: <19980217122607.54902@gil.physik.rwth-aachen.de> Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 12:26:07 +0000 From: Christoph Kukulies To: "Reini (Reinhold Huber)" Cc: Christoph Kukulies , freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: multi-version FS References: <199802170911.JAA14813@gilberto.physik.RWTH-Aachen.DE> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.81e In-Reply-To: ; from Reini (Reinhold Huber) on Tue, Feb 17, 1998 at 01:12:40PM +0100 Sender: owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Tue, Feb 17, 1998 at 01:12:40PM +0100, Reini (Reinhold Huber) wrote: > Hi there > > On Tue, 17 Feb 1998, Christoph Kukulies wrote: > > > Yesterday I had a visit from some sales people of Rational Technologies > > who are offering a version control/management under NT (named ClearCase) > > which is kind of GUI based (explorer centric) and which establishes a > > multi version FS under NT (they say 'developed by the people who > > designed the VMS file system' - well, I cannot judge if this can be > > considered a big plus :-). Anyway, is there such a thing as a > > MVFS (multi version FS) under FreeBSD and would it be worth > > taking a look at it ? > > I worked as a student with Atria ClearCase, and it sounds very much the > same. (Pure) Atria has been bought by Rational Technologies sometime in 1997. So no surprise :-) > OS environment was Solaris (on sparc). The ClearCase Software offered > the *whole* "repository" (CVS word) as a special device to be mounted > via NFS. In this FS, any file can be accessed with a > > @@/main[/[/ ... ]]/ > [other considerations omitted] > > Greetings, > Reinhold Huber -- Chris Christoph P. U. Kukulies kuku@gil.physik.rwth-aachen.de To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-fs" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-fs Thu Feb 19 10:33:18 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id KAA27110 for freebsd-fs-outgoing; Thu, 19 Feb 1998 10:33:18 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from db2server.voga.com.br (db2server.voga.com.br [200.239.39.7]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id KAA27057 for ; Thu, 19 Feb 1998 10:33:05 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from daniel_sobral@voga.com.br) From: daniel_sobral@voga.com.br Received: from papagaio.voga.com.br (papagaio.voga.com.br [200.239.39.2]) by db2server.voga.com.br (8.8.3+2.6Wbeta9/8.8.7) with SMTP id QAA21328 for ; Thu, 19 Feb 1998 16:32:28 -0200 Received: by papagaio.voga.com.br(Lotus SMTP MTA v1.06 (346.7 3-18-1997)) id 032565B0.006B5681 ; Thu, 19 Feb 1998 16:32:24 -0300 X-Lotus-FromDomain: VOGA To: fs@FreeBSD.ORG Message-ID: <832565B0.006B2375.00@papagaio.voga.com.br> Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 16:32:18 -0300 Subject: Soft updates Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Can anyone give me a reference about soft updates? I'm designing an application which has nothing to do with filesystems but I'm starting to face the same problems... Mathematical heavy references are fine. -- Daniel C. Sobral (8-DCS) Daniel_Sobral@voga.com.br Tagline: * FreeBSD. Earth. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-fs" in the body of the message From owner-freebsd-fs Fri Feb 20 04:51:15 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id EAA13036 for freebsd-fs-outgoing; Fri, 20 Feb 1998 04:51:15 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from bg.sics.se (bg.sics.se [193.10.66.124]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id EAA13020 for ; Fri, 20 Feb 1998 04:50:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bg@bg.sics.se) Received: (from bg@localhost) by bg.sics.se (8.8.5/8.8.5) id NAA00403; Fri, 20 Feb 1998 13:50:01 +0100 (CET) To: daniel_sobral@voga.com.br Cc: fs@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Soft updates References: <832565B0.006B2375.00@papagaio.voga.com.br> From: Bjoern Groenvall Date: 20 Feb 1998 13:50:01 +0100 In-Reply-To: daniel_sobral@voga.com.br's message of Thu, 19 Feb 1998 16:32:18 -0300 Message-ID: Lines: 18 X-Mailer: Red Gnus v0.52/Emacs 19.34 Sender: owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org daniel_sobral@voga.com.br writes: > Can anyone give me a reference about soft updates? I'm designing an > application which has nothing to do with filesystems but I'm starting to > face the same problems... Mathematical heavy references are fine. you may start with http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/papers/index.html Metadata Update Performance in File Systems and Soft Updates: A Solution to the Metadata Update Problem in File Systems Cheers, Björn To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-fs" in the body of the message