[zfs-discuss] data structures in ZFS

eric kustarz
Fri, 06 Jul 2007 00:55:37 -0000

On Jul 4, 2007, at 7:50 AM, Wout Mertens wrote:

>> A data structure view of ZFS is now available:
>> http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/structures/
>>
>> We''ve only got one picture up right now (though its a juicy
one!),
>> but let us know what you''re interested in seeing, and
>> we''ll try to make that happen.
>
> Well it''s a nice picture, thanks! (could you also make a .svg
> version available?)

Say, you''re the second person to request that.  I used OmniGraffle
which is a really nice tool for creating these pictures, but it
doesn''t support SVG.  Hopefully they will add support, or i may have
to switch to openoffice.

>
> As a zfs-code-illiterate interested bystander, it would be nice if
> the various objects were annotated with short descriptions of their
> intent. The same goes for the pointers to objects in other layers,
> what is the pointer keeping track of, what kind of information
> passes between the layers.

Yeah, some of this requires you to understand some of the code (or at
least reference it).

>
> I''d also love to see what happens on the block level when you take
> a snapshot. What objects end up pointing to the same things etc.
>
> And if you could make it into a 3d zooming movie with change-by-
> change animations that''d be awesome! ;-)
>
> But this is certainly a lot easier to grok than the linear
> descriptions in the on-disk format guide. Thanks!

you''re welcome.

eric