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Date:      Thu, 30 Aug 2012 16:36:56 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Rick Macklem <rmacklem@uoguelph.ca>
To:        Tim Gustafson <tjg@soe.ucsc.edu>
Cc:        freebsd-fs@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Using AMD with NFS Mounts
Message-ID:  <380236740.1347711.1346359016755.JavaMail.root@erie.cs.uoguelph.ca>
In-Reply-To: <CAG27QgQOt%2BFD_Ef5HuiJV2euTzPLXk-nNN8iJ1L-2DmU0fKPxg@mail.gmail.com>

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Tim Gustafson wrote:
> > Although I'd see it as an option initially, planning on supporting
> > both
> > "forever" would just result in bloat and yet more software to try
> > and
> > maintain, imho. (Theoretical comment, at least until a solid autofs
> > port
> > exists.)
> 
> I don't see that as a valid argument against adding an autofs port.
> Should we drop the port for Exim or Postgres, because ports for
> Sendmail and mySQL exist?
> 
The problem with something that goes in the kernel and uses the VFS/VOP
interface is that it easily "bit rots" if it isn't in src/sys and being
maintained by someone. (Note the file systems that aren't MP safe or don't
work well that currently live within src/sys. Some will go away soon if
the aren't made MP safe by someone.)
I think you'd find that an autofs port (not necessarily in "ports") would
suffer the same fate. (I'm honestly surprised that amd keeps working, since
no one really maintains it. I mentioned that it is the last use of the
old mount(2) syscall for NFS mounts. I know because I broke the backwards
compatibility for mount(2) and amd got broken by that;-)

However, I agree it isn't a reason for not having a port of it. I'd just
rather see it replace amd, because it is old code I don't know how to
maintain. This is similar to mountd.c. I am about to look at a couple of
patches for mountd.c, but I hate doing this, because is it really old
hard to read code. Lots of people complain about the lack of atomic export
updates, but replacing mountd with nfse doesn't seem to be in the cards
because it isn't absolutely 100% (including the bugs) compatible with
mountd. (It seems mountd will exist "forever" unless someone implements
a 100% compatible replacement and it will only get harder to maintain.
If you don't believe me, take a look at mountd.c.:-)

rick

> --
> 
> Tim Gustafson
> tjg@soe.ucsc.edu
> 831-459-5354
> Baskin Engineering, Room 313A



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