Subject: RE: [nfsv4] Global namespace for v4.1?

From: "Noveck, Dave" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 10:33:49 -0800

And given that you are going to support such dumb clients, what is
the value of creating additional mechanisms to support smart clients?
There's an existing mechanism which seems to meet the need whereby
clients get this information, from the server by means of a referral,
(and it is a mechanism that clients need anyway to deal with migration),
and having them use that, no matter now smart they are, seems the most 
sensible path to take.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Nicolas Williams [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Monday, December 15, 2003 1:18 PM
To: [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: [nfsv4] Global namespace for v4.1?

On Mon, Dec 15, 2003 at 10:12:13AM -0800, Brent Callaghan wrote:
> Nicolas Williams wrote:
> >IMO we need:
> >
> > - a referral mechanism (got that)
> > - a "root" finding mechanism (we can build that today as a set of
> >   conventions, really)
> 
> Yes, a couple of important components, though, I should point out,
> these elements are just a few in a long list of the list of features
> that we expect of any general-purpose name service, e.g. LDAP, NIS, DNS etc.

I acknowledged as much, and should have put that on my list.

> I think what Julian is trying to point out is that a namespace is more
> than just a collection of exported filesystems.  There's some expectation
> that these filesystems will be organized in some way, most likely one or
> more hierarchical trees, and their shape will be determined by the customer.
> 
> I predict that as the requirements of the namespace become more clearly
> defined, the advantages of using an established name service will become
> more apparent.

Surely.  But how the information is distributed to either smart clients
or smart servers is a problem that I see as separate from the question
of whether or not we should support dumb clients (for which we need
referrals).

Nico
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---

From: Nicolas Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 10:39:18 -0800

> the value of creating additional mechanisms to support smart clients?

Because the same mechanism for distributing namespace information to
smart clients can be used to distribute it to smart servers.

And because some customers, no doubt, will still want smart clients, and
we'll still have to support smart clients for NFSv2/3.

Having the same _interoperable_ mechanism for distributing namespace
information to clients and servers, then, can be big plus.

> and having them use that, no matter now smart they are, seems the most 

This is my position, though I agree with Brent and David that we still
need a mechanism for distributing namespace information to the server.

Cheers,

Nico
--

---

From: Brent Callaghan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 10:49:21 -0800

Wouldn't it be better to have a single method of accessing
name-to-location mappings that can be used by both clients
and servers ?

I'm having trouble reconciling "dumb" with "NFSv4 client." :-)

	Brent