[Gluster-devel] Multiple NFS Servers (Gluster NFS in 3.x, unfsd, knfsd, etc.)

[Gordan Bobic]

Martin Fick wrote:
> --- On Wed, 1/6/10, Gordan Bobic <gordan at bobich.net> wrote:
> 
>>> With native NFS there'll be no need to first mount a
>> glusterFS
>>> FUSE based volume and then export it as NFS. The way
>> it has been developed is that
>>> any glusterfs volume in the volfile can be exported
>> using NFS by adding
>>> an NFS volume over it in the volfile. This is
>> something that will become
>>> clearer from the sample vol files when 3.0.1 comes
>> out.
>>
>> It may be worth checking the performance of that solution
>> vs the performance of the standalone unfsd unbound to
>> portmap/mountd over mounted glfs volumes, as I discovered
>> today that the performance feels very similar to native
>> knfsd and server-side AFR, but without the fuse.ko
>> complications of the former and the buggyness of the latter
>> (e.g. see bug 186: http://bugs.gluster.com/cgi-bin/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=186
>> - that bug has been driving me nuts since before 2.0.0 was
>> released)
>>
>> I'd hate to see this be another wasted effort like booster
>> when there is a solution that already works.
> 
> I don't think it would be wasted if it includes NLM since unfsd 
> does not do locking!

Arguably it just replicated the functionality of server side volume 
assembly and exporting just the assembled volume. Whether the end client 
connects via nfs or glfs is largely immaterial for the sake of 
installing an additional package on the client. The bug mentioned above 
that shows up under that scenario, however, is probably a far more 
critical issue than what the client connection protocol is. I've said 
this before - stability should come before features, especially when 
features are replicating what can already be achieved with only 
superficial differences.

Gordan