[Gluster-devel] RPC thoughts for glusterd-2.0

[chris holcombe]

I've been working on writing a gluster library that speaks the native 
RPC to gluster so that I could avoid using the CLI.  I've been 
successful but the endeavor has brought up some interesting insights.  I 
plan on open sourcing the code so that everyone can benefit from this.

struct gf_cli_req {
         opaque  dict<>;
};
and
struct gf_cli_rsp {
         int     op_ret;
         int     op_errno;
         string  op_errstr<>;
         opaque  dict<>;
};

are used to make a lot of the CLI calls. The opaque dict passing back 
and forth creates a need for string parsing on both sides.  My 
understanding of RPC was that each call would have its own struct 
associated with it so that no parsing need happen.  It would also make 
it much easier for other people to build libraries to interface with 
Gluster if the call parameters were clearly defined.  Each time I want 
to make a call work with glusterd 1.0 I need to figure out what 
parameters need to be packed into the dict.  This involves some hunting.

Since glusterd 2.0 is a refactoring I figured this would be a good time 
to ask for adding additional more explicit RPC calls to the API.  That 
would make it a breeze to run an rpcgen command against the .x file and 
have a working library to glusterd!

Thanks,
Chris