Subject: [nfsv4] [FedFS] Meeting Minutes, 05/14/2009

From: James Lentini <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 May 2009 14:50:32 -0400 (EDT)

FedFS Meeting Minutes, 05/14/2009
---------------------------------

Attendees
---------

Andy Adamson (NetApp)
Dan Ellard (BBN Technologies)
Craig Everhart (NetApp)
James Lentini (NetApp)
Renu Tewari (IBM)
Rob Thurlow (Sun)

Minutes
-------

+ IETF Note Well Agreement

  This is a reminder that our discussions are governed by the 
  IETF Note Well Agreement. See:

    http://www.ietf.org/NOTEWELL.html

  We will start each week's meeting with this announcement.

+ Review Action Items

  - James Lentini will draft migration and cached FSN to FSL mappings text

    Open.

  - James Lentini will draft annotations syntax text

    See http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/nfsv4/current/msg07010.html

    Closed. No comments.

+ Requirements Draft Last Call

  The issues so far have been minor. Dave Noveck suggested a re-wording of 
  "filesystem clients" to "filesystem applications" and Rob noticed a 
  confusing example in section 4.3.

  The next step is IESG review. IESG may take a month before they look at. 
  Most of their comments will likely be minor ("I don't know what this means 
  or Please clarify this). After the IESG there is a long lead time between 
  IETF last call and then another long lead time before/with the RFC editor.

+ Root Fileset

  We discussed Renu's document.

  Andy sent some comments. He suggested indicating that 
  users (not the client) traverse the namespace. He also 
  noted that it was unclear if the root fileset SHOULD NOT 
  or MUST NOT contain data. If the NSDB's LDAP schema does 
  not support data that will imply a MUST NOT. We agreed that 
  this should be a MUST NOT. Andy also suggested clarifications 
  to section 3.3 on the security considerations. Andy suggested  
  that the root fileset should have AUTH_NULL security and the 
  actual filesets have security mechanisms.

  Rob asked about what the purpose the root FSN served versus 
  a normal FSN. Renu explained that the fileserver needed a 
  way to retrieve data for the root FSN differently than retrieving 
  FSLs for a regular FSN. Rob pointed out that they were different 
  inherently, but agreed that there may be a reason to mark the 
  root FSN with a special flag. Rob also asked about 3.3 that 
  discusses how clients find the top of the namespace. Rob suggested 
  pointing at the DNS SRV draft here. The DNS SRV specification has 
  expired, so we will need to update it. 

  [AI] James Lentini will check on the status of the DNS SRV specification.

  Is there one and only one root fileset or can there be 
  multiple root filesets? Andy suggested the example of the grid in 
  which each project with multiple participants might want a to have a 
  root fileset. Renu suggested that this could be accomplished by having 
  a sub directory of the root fileset for each project.

  We discussed whether or not AUTH_NULL or AUTH_SYS should be supported 
  for root fileset. The security flavor is important in so far as 
  everyone should be able to connect to a root fileservers.

  Is there a way to prevent systems from being configured with different 
  root filesets? Andy clarified that it should not be possible to place 
  a root fileset below a root fileset. James suggested that in each 
  federation we recommend one root fileset, but there may be multiple, 
  disjoint federations in the world each with their own roots.

  We need to think more about the root fileset schema. How will we 
  represent it in LDAP and how will updates be distributed?

  Andy wondered if there was a need to support multiple directory 
  levels in the root fileset. 

+ Bake-a-thon (June 15-19)
  http://www.connectathon.org/bakeathon/

  James has pinged NetApp folks. James will connect them up with Rob.

  Rob has pinged Bruce and Trond. Andy will be there. There should be 
  ample people for Linux referrals testing.

+ NFSv4 Multi Domain Federated FS Access

  We discussed Andy's document.

  Andy explained why he described the problem as related to FedFS. James
  stated that he thought the problem was more generic than FedFS. Rob agreed.

  Andy believes that there are novel aspect of the problem with FedFS. 

  Andy noted that he viewed this as a best practices document. 

  James suggested describing the problems being solved in greater detail and 
  introducing the proposed solution earlier in the document.