I would like to discuss how to get DMAPI accepted into the mainline kernel. DMAPI is or was supported by a number of filesystems which are included in linux (including XFS) and also is supported by a number of proprietary filesystems. However, the DMAPI implementation has not yet been accepted into the main line. - What are the barriers to inclusion and how can they be resolved? - What FOSS HSM projects are available to use the interface? * xfstests/dmapi/sample_hsm * openhsm (opensms) * tinyhsm (unfinished, unreleased) - Who are the interested parties (if any), and how could we split up the work? In the end I'd like to come up with a plan that seems reasonable toward getting DMAPI included mainline. I know that Alex Elder and others have done work in this area and I would like to see it bear fruit. --- Secondly, I'd enjoy a discussion of an old idea from back in the day when I worked as a sysadmin and became a storage software hobbyist. Having recently lost a great deal of data due to disk failure and failed backups, I struck upon the idea of turning the backup paradigm on it's head: I'd rather have the authoritative copy of my data on an external medium and only cache it on spinning rust. The filesystem would log every transaction (WORM style) to removable media and the set of discs or tapes would be replayable onto new hard disks when I had a failure. Checkpoints would ensure that the number of discs/tapes necessary to replay the filesystem remained manageable, and the write performance problem would be mitigated by maintaining a temporary log on spinning disk to spool up enough data to keep the tape from having to rewind. One could choose to recycle media from before a checkpoint, or save it off for posterity. My choice of medium at the time was cd-rom since I couldn't afford a tape drive. I went about trying to implement such a thing using DMAPI, which isn't suitable (you can't set an event mask on a file quickly enough to log the first writes). Then I tried a stacking filesystem, fuse, got a job, and lost interest. This is almost certainly not a new idea. If there is already something like this implemented, I'd like to hear about it. If there isn't, maybe we could come up with a rough design on a cocktail napkin and pique enough interest to make a start. Regards, Ben -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
