Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2005 07:33:34 -0500 From: Eric Anderson <anderson@centtech.com> To: yfyoufeng@263.net Cc: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org, Allan Fields <bsd@afields.ca> Subject: Re: Cluster Filesystem for FreeBSD - any interest? Message-ID: <42C5381E.9080708@centtech.com> In-Reply-To: <1119490133.2298.14.camel@localhost.localdomain> References: <42B825CC.806@centtech.com> <20050622023727.GA19408@afields.ca> <42B954FE.2070406@centtech.com> <1119490133.2298.14.camel@localhost.localdomain>
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yf-263 wrote: > 在 2005-06-22三的 07:09 -0500，Eric Anderson写道： > >>Allan Fields wrote: >> >>>On Tue, Jun 21, 2005 at 09:35:56AM -0500, Eric Anderson wrote: >>> >>> >>>>This is something I've brought up before on other lists, but I'm curious >>>>if anyone is interested in developing a BSD licensed clustered >>>>filesystem for FreeBSD (and anyone else)? >>> >>> >>>A few questions: >>> >>>Could this be done as a stackable file system (vnode layer distributed >>>file system) or did you have something else in mind (i.e. specifically >>>a full implementation of a network filesystem including storage >>>layer)? >> >>Hmm. I'm not sure if it can or not. I'll try to explain what I'm >>dreaming of. I currently have about 1000 clients needing access to the > > > This is exactly what we are doing now :) but only a proof-of-concept > toy. > > Now it has a asymmetric arch, i.e. a client, some metadata server, and > some filedata server. > > thanks for your professional description as what we are target to ;) > > >>same pools of data (read/write) all the time. The data changes >>constantly. There is a lot of this data. We use NFS currently. >>FreeBSD is *very* fast and stable at serving NFS data. The problem is, >>that even though it is very fast and stable, I still cannot pump out >>enough bits fast enough with one machine, and if that one machine fails >>(hardware problems, etc), then all my machines are hung waiting for me >>to bring it back online. >> >>So, what I would love to have, is this kind of setup: shared media >>storage (fibre channel SAN, iscsi, or something like ggated possibly), >>connected up to a cluster of hosts running FreeBSD. Each FreeBSD server >>has access to the logical disks, same partitions, and can mount them all >>r/w. Now, I can kind of do this now, however there are obviously some >>issues with this currently. I want all machines in this cluster to be >>able to serve the data via NFS (or http, or anything else for that >>matter really - if you can make NFS work, anything will pretty much >>work) simultaneously from the same partitions, and see writes >>immediately as the other hosts in the cluster commit them. >> >>I currently have a solution just like this for Linux - Polyserve >>(http://www.polyserve.com) has a clustered filesystem for linux, that >>works very well. I've even tried to convince them to port it to >>FreeBSD, but it falls on deaf ears, so it's time to make our own. >> >> >> >>>Why not a port of an existing network filesystem say from Linux? >>>(A BSD rewrite could be done, if the code was GPLed.) Would >>>cross-platform capabilities make sense? >> >>That would work fine I'm sure - but I have found some similar threads in >>the past that claim it would be just as hard and time consuming to port >>one as it would be to create one from scratch. Cross platform >>capabilities would be great, but I'm mostly interested in getting >>FreeBSD into this arena (as it will soon be an extremely important one >>to be in). >> >> >> >>>How do you see this comparing to device-level solutions? I know >>>the argument can be made to implement file systems/storage >>>abstractions at multiple layers, but I thought I might ask. >> >>I'm not sure of a device level solution that does this. I think the OS >>has to know to commit the meta-data to a journal, or otherwise let the >>other machines know about locking, etc, in order for this to work. >> >> >> >>>The other thing is there a wealth of filesystem papers out there, >>>any in specific caught your eye? >> >>No - can you point me to some? >> >>I'll be honest here - I'm not a code developer. I would love to learn >>some C here, and 'just do it', but filesystems aren't exactly simple, so >>I'm looking for a group of people that would love to code up something >>amazing like this - I'll support the developers and hopefully learn >>something in the process. My goal personally would be to do anything I >>could to make the developers work most productively, and do testing. I >>can probably provide equipment, and a good testbed for it. You've mentioned this a few times before - is this something you will be offering publicly sometime soon? Eric -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Eric Anderson Sr. Systems Administrator Centaur Technology A lost ounce of gold may be found, a lost moment of time never. ------------------------------------------------------------------------help
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