[Gluster-Maintainers] GlusterFS Project Update - Week 1&2 of Oct

[Shyam Ranganathan]

This is a once in 2 weeks update on activities around glusterfs
project [1]. This is intended to provide the community with updates on
progress around key initiatives and also to reiterate current goals that
the project is working towards.

This is intended to help contributors to pick and address key areas that
are in focus, and the community to help provide feedback and raise flags
that need attention.

1. Key highlights of the last 2 weeks:
- Patches merged [1]
  Key patches:
    - Coverity fixes
    - Python3 related fixes
    - ASAN fixes (trickling in)
    - Patch to handle a case of hang in arbiter
      https://review.gluster.org/21380
    - Fixes in cleanup sequence
      https://review.gluster.org/21379
- Release updates:
  - Release 5 has a single blocker before GA, all other activities are
complete
    - Blocker bug: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1630804
  - Release 6 scope call out to happen this week!
- Interesting devel threads
  - “Gluster performance updates”
https://lists.gluster.org/pipermail/gluster-devel/2018-October/055484.html
  - “Update of work on fixing POSIX compliance issues in Glusterfs”
https://lists.gluster.org/pipermail/gluster-devel/2018-October/055488.html
  - “Compile Xlator manually with lib 'glusterfs'”
https://lists.gluster.org/pipermail/gluster-devel/2018-October/055560.html

2. Bug trends in the last 2 weeks
  - Bugs and status for the last 2 weeks [3]
    - 14 bugs are still in the NEW state and need assignment

3. Key focus areas for the next 2 weeks
  - Continue coverity, clang, ASAN focus
    - Coverity how to participate [4]
    - Clang issues that need attention [5]
    - ASAN issues:
      See https://review.gluster.org/c/glusterfs/+/21300 on how to
effectively use ASAN builds, and use the same to clear up ASAN issues
appearing in your testing.

  - Improve on bug backlog reduction (details to follow)

  - Remove unsupported xlators from the code base:
    https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1635688

  - Prepare xlators for classification assignment, to enable selective
volume graph topology for GCS volumes
https://github.com/gluster/glusterfs/blob/master/doc/developer-guide/xlator-classification.md

  - Adapt all xlators (and options) to the new registration function as in,
    https://review.gluster.org/c/glusterfs/+/19712

3. Next release focus areas
  - Deprecate xlators as announced in the lists
  - Complete implementation of xlator classification for all xlators
  - Cleanup sequence with brick-mux
  - Fencing infrastructure for gluster-block
  - Fuse Interrupt Syscall Support
  - Release 6 targeted enhancements [6] (Needs to be populated)

4. Longer term focus areas (possibly beyond the next release)
  - Reflink support, extended to snapshot support for gluster-block
  - Client side caching improvements

- Amar, Shyam and Xavi

Links:

[1] GlusterFS: https://github.com/gluster/glusterfs/

[2] Patches merged in the last 2 weeks:
https://review.gluster.org/q/project:glusterfs+branch:master+until:2018-10-14+since:2018-10-01+status:merged

[3] Bug status for the last 2 weeks:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/report.cgi?x_axis_field=bug_status&y_axis_field=component&z_axis_field=&no_redirect=1&query_format=report-table&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&classification=Community&product=GlusterFS&longdesc_type=allwordssubstr&longdesc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&deadlinefrom=&deadlineto=&bug_id=&bug_id_type=anyexact&votes=&votes_type=greaterthaneq&emailtype1=substring&email1=&emailtype2=substring&email2=&emailtype3=substring&email3=&chfield=%5BBug+creation%5D&chfieldvalue=&chfieldfrom=2018-10-01&chfieldto=2018-10-14&j_top=AND&f1=component&o1=notequals&v1=project-infrastructure&f2=noop&o2=noop&v2=&format=table&action=wrap

[4] Coverity reduction and how to participate:
https://lists.gluster.org/pipermail/gluster-devel/2018-August/055155.html

[5] CLang issues needing attention:
https://build.gluster.org/job/clang-scan/lastCompletedBuild/clangScanBuildBugs/

[6] Release 6 targeted enhancements:
https://github.com/gluster/glusterfs/milestone/8