Subject: NFS locking (WAS Re: Enhancing the NetBSD kernel)
To: None <entropy@zippy.bernstein.com>
From: Ronald Khoo <ronald@demon.net>
List: tech-kern
Date: 11/14/1998 02:39:55
Maximum entropy wrote:

> Would it be particularly difficult to implement the actual locking?
> I'm just wondering why it hasn't been done...is there a technical
> reason, or is it just because no one has volunteered to write the code?

To quote from http://www.freebsd.org/~terry/DIFF.LOCKS.txt:

>	The following two patches implement the majority of the
>	necessary kernel code for supporting NFS client and server
>	locking.

>	I recommend that other *BSD's apply this against a -current
>	FreeBSD tree, and then use that information to apply them
>	against their own.  FreeBSD has diverged greatly in the
>	files these patches touch, despite claims to the contrary.

Of course, that's ``just'' the kernel portion.  The userland part
is arguably more difficult as I suspect you would have to fight with
inter-operating with the different bugs from each release
of each vendor's NFS code.

I don't know anything about filesystem code, I'm just curious if anyone
who has has examined whether Terry's code is worth importing.  The
problem would appear, from Tery's comments above, that one would *have*
to be an expert to be able to even think about testing even just
the kernel portion.  Oh, and the Last-Modified date on
that URL is Thu, 12 Feb 1998 06:56:06 GMT, which would make things
even harder.


--