Plan 9 Resource Sharing Support - what is it?

Plan 9 Resource Sharing Support - what is it?

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

  Plan 9 Resource Sharing Support (9P2000) (Experimental) (NET_9P)
[N/m/y/?] (NEW) ?

If you say Y here, you will get experimental support for
Plan 9 resource sharing via the 9P2000 protocol.

See <http://v9fs.sf.net> for more information.

If unsure, say N.

What is "plan 9 resource sharing"? Some kind of mosix-like process
migration? Could you explain it in two lines in Kconfig?

http://v9fs.sf.net

is redirect to 

http://v9fs.sourceforge.net/

which tells me 

Moved to SWiK

after clicking on that, I get to page with content, but no
explanation (could Kconfig/MAINTAINERS be updated?).
 								Pavel
-- 
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html

Re: Plan 9 Resource Sharing Support - what is it?

[Al Viro]

On Mon, Jul 23, 2007 at 09:54:34AM +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:
>   Plan 9 Resource Sharing Support (9P2000) (Experimental) (NET_9P)
> [N/m/y/?] (NEW) ?
> 
> If you say Y here, you will get experimental support for
> Plan 9 resource sharing via the 9P2000 protocol.
> 
> See <http://v9fs.sf.net> for more information.
> 
> If unsure, say N.
> 
> What is "plan 9 resource sharing"? Some kind of mosix-like process
> migration? Could you explain it in two lines in Kconfig?

9P is the protocol used by Plan 9 remote/userland filesystem servers.
FUSE is its considerably more bloated and less sane analog.

Re: Plan 9 Resource Sharing Support - what is it?

[Eric Van Hensbergen]

On 7/23/07, Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> What is "plan 9 resource sharing"? Some kind of mosix-like process
> migration? Could you explain it in two lines in Kconfig?
>
> http://v9fs.sf.net
>
> is redirect to
>
> http://v9fs.sourceforge.net/
>
> which tells me
>
> Moved to SWiK
>
> after clicking on that, I get to page with content, but no
> explanation (could Kconfig/MAINTAINERS be updated?).
>

Sure, I'll try to put something in that is considerably less vague and
I'll update the URLs as well.  We've been somewhat lagging on
documentation.  The most complete explanation is available in the
Freenix paper:
   http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix05/tech/freenix/hensbergen.html

The short answer is that it is a Linux client for sharing file
systems, devices, and system services mapped as synthetic file systems
via a simple protocol.  Its primary focus has been to keep things
simple, and to try and maintain support for being able to effectively
share synthetic file systems (like /proc, or /sysfs, or ones exported
by Plan 9 applications (Russ Cox's Plan 9 ports package contains a set
of Plan 9 applications ported to UNIX such as the Venti content
addressable storage system)).

Its being used internally by (at the very least) IBM Research and Los
Alamos National Labs.  To date we've been focused on the client and a
few specialized servers, we are currently broadening our approach to a
better general-purpose server and evaluating if it makes sense to make
an in-kernel server available.  We've also been looking at using 9p in
the context of virtualized environments to provide file service, and
perhaps sharing of other system resources as well.  Once we have a
better handle on the server story, we'll produce a much larger body of
documentation discussing usage as well as development of 9p file
servers.

There are also side-efforts underway evaluating different methods of
extended the 9p protocol to better support the Linux (and other UNIX)
environments -- ideally without adding a signifigant amount of
complexity.

         -eric

Re: Plan 9 Resource Sharing Support - what is it?

[Miklos Szeredi]

> >   Plan 9 Resource Sharing Support (9P2000) (Experimental) (NET_9P)
> > [N/m/y/?] (NEW) ?
> > 
> > If you say Y here, you will get experimental support for
> > Plan 9 resource sharing via the 9P2000 protocol.
> > 
> > See <http://v9fs.sf.net> for more information.
> > 
> > If unsure, say N.
> > 
> > What is "plan 9 resource sharing"? Some kind of mosix-like process
> > migration? Could you explain it in two lines in Kconfig?
> 
> 9P is the protocol used by Plan 9 remote/userland filesystem servers.
> FUSE is its considerably more bloated and less sane analog.

Heh, I think a similar analogy could be said about Plan9 vs. Linux.
With about the same result in user bases ;)

Miklos