linux-kernel.vger.kernel.org archive mirror
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz>
To: Jesse Pollard <pollard@tomcat.admin.navo.hpc.mil>
Cc: pavel@suse.cz, Trond Myklebust <trond.myklebust@fys.uio.no>,
	Alexander Viro <viro@math.psu.edu>,
	Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	Simon Richter <Simon.Richter@phobos.fachschaften.tu-muenchen.de>,
	Jonathan Barker <jbarker@ebi.ac.uk>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: VFS mediator?
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 22:24:25 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20020319212425.GH12260@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <200203191345.HAA74864@tomcat.admin.navo.hpc.mil>

Hi!

> > >      > Okay, take userland nfs-server. (This thread was about userland
> > >      > filesystems).
> > > 
> > > Yech... Nobody should be seriously considering using unfsd: it does
> > > not even manage to follow the NFS protocol. That inability was one of
> > > the many reasons why Olaf Kirch abandoned further develpement of unfsd
> > > and started work on knfsd.
> > > 
> > >      > Then, make memory full of dirty pages. Imagine that nfs-server
> > >      > is swapped-out by some bad luck. What you have is extremely
> > >      > nasty deadlock, AFAICS. [To free memory you have to write out
> > >      > dirty data, but you can't do that because you don't have enough
> > >      > memory for nfs-server].
> > > 
> > > So that is another argument for using knfsd rather than unfsd. I will
> > > agree with you that NFS is not perfect, but please judge it on its
> > > actual merits and not on some trumped up charge...
> > 
> > Sorry, this thread was about userland filesystems, and NFS is just not
> > usefull there (for read/write case).
> 
> Assuming, of course, that the daemon doesn't mprotect itself...

Even if it did, I'm not sure it would be safe. write() may need some
memory, too.

> A user mode file system is really only good at debugging a design.

Not agreed. I would not want ftpfs in kernel, yet its happy in
userland.

> All file migration style filesystems, and user mode filesystems, have this
> same problem on paging based systems:
> 
> Can't write buffer until file is migrated (file system full),

Well, filesystem full is nasty case. [I wonder how coda solves that?]
								Pavel
-- 
Casualities in World Trade Center: ~3k dead inside the building,
cryptography in U.S.A. and free speech in Czech Republic.

  reply	other threads:[~2002-03-19 21:27 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 17+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2002-03-19 13:45 VFS mediator? Jesse Pollard
2002-03-19 21:24 ` Pavel Machek [this message]
  -- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2002-03-14 14:52 Jonathan Barker
2002-03-14 23:09 ` Simon Richter
2002-03-14 23:33   ` Alan Cox
2002-03-15  0:00     ` Alexander Viro
2002-03-15 11:50       ` Simon Richter
2002-03-18 19:25       ` Pavel Machek
2002-03-18 22:18         ` Trond Myklebust
2002-03-18 22:38           ` Pavel Machek
2002-03-18 22:48             ` Trond Myklebust
2002-03-18 22:54               ` Pavel Machek
2002-03-18 23:05                 ` Trond Myklebust
2002-03-19  0:15           ` Alan Cox
2002-03-18 22:29         ` Alexander Viro
2002-03-18 22:36           ` Pavel Machek
2002-03-15 14:28 ` Jonathan Barker

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=20020319212425.GH12260@atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz \
    --to=pavel@suse.cz \
    --cc=Simon.Richter@phobos.fachschaften.tu-muenchen.de \
    --cc=alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk \
    --cc=jbarker@ebi.ac.uk \
    --cc=linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=pollard@tomcat.admin.navo.hpc.mil \
    --cc=trond.myklebust@fys.uio.no \
    --cc=viro@math.psu.edu \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).