Over coffee with a colleague (cc''d) we were talking about the problem of taking advantage of ZFS over NFS (or CIFS) from a non Solaris machine. We already have the .zfs/snapshot dir and this is great. One of the other areas was knowing the settings on your data set are. So enter .zfs/info which would be an ascii representation of the information from `zfs get all`. I can see some problems with this, and it reminds me a little too much of what happened to /proc on Linux and so a bit uncomfortable about suggesting. So what do others thing ? -- Darren J Moffat
> Over coffee with a colleague (cc''d) we were talking > about the problem of > taking advantage of ZFS over NFS (or CIFS) from a non > Solaris machine. > > We already have the .zfs/snapshot dir and this is > great. One of the > other areas was knowing the settings on your data set > are. So enter > .zfs/info which would be an ascii representation of > the information from > `zfs get all`. > > I can see some problems with this, and it reminds me > a little too much > of what happened to /proc on Linux and so a bit > uncomfortable about > suggesting. >Since sharing ZFS data over NFS, the one bit of info I''d really like to see from the NFS shares would be more accurate guesstimates of disk space used and available. Perhaps adding some time-stamped (hourly? daily?) disk space usage statistics file or directory would be more useful to a majority of clients. Of course, due to performance considerations, this should be a user selectable option. Perhaps automatically enabled if/when quotas are used? The overall ZFS settings should be available to any administrators anyway, and I''m uncertain as to the necessity of having this information also shared by default via NFS. Either way, it seems both ideas could be implemented by scripts if necessary, but the inclusion of such data should make life easier. This message posted from opensolaris.org
Hi, Darren J Moffat wrote:> Over coffee with a colleague (cc''d) we were talking about the problem of > taking advantage of ZFS over NFS (or CIFS) from a non Solaris machine. > > We already have the .zfs/snapshot dir and this is great. One of the > other areas was knowing the settings on your data set are. So enter > .zfs/info which would be an ascii representation of the information from > `zfs get all`. > > I can see some problems with this, and it reminds me a little too much > of what happened to /proc on Linux and so a bit uncomfortable about > suggesting.I share the uncomfort with the /proc analogy. But Wes'' scripting approach seems to be just fine for me. The timestamping would communicate the SLA of "just a script" versus the magically hacked nature of pseudo-files. But being able to poll data out of ZFS over NFS is probably just a minor issue. In germany, we say: "Give ''em the little finger an they''ll want the whole hand". So, I assume the next thing a ZFS-over-NFS user would want is to change stuff over NFS which would then become difficult. Resisting the pseudo-files-as-a- broken-API-for-changing-stuff urge might then be even more appropriate. Best regards, Constantin -- Constantin Gonzalez Sun Microsystems GmbH, Germany Platform Technology Group, Client Solutions http://www.sun.de/ Tel.: +49 89/4 60 08-25 91 http://blogs.sun.com/constantin/