begin  Jan Harkes <jaharkes_at_cs.cmu.edu> wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 31, 2003 at 04:56:13PM +0000, Joerg Sommer wrote:
> It is possible to kill venus and 'reattach' it without unmounting the
> filesystem, but that isn't really documented (or recommended) anywhere.

While venus is detached, is it possible to open files?

> The problem is that we keep track of how many people have the file open
> to avoid purging it from the cache while it is still being used, and to
> only send the most recent version back (last writer closes). If you

That shouldn't be a big problem for me, because the hole volume is
readonly.

>> What's the reason for this? Currently, we're running a computer pool with
>> diskless clients based on AFS. But AFS has the know disatvantages and we
>
> If the clients are truly diskless, where is the local cache (and RVM)
> stored? I know, silly question. But technically a truly diskless client

On a ramdisk.

> and the possibility of disconnected operation don't mix too well. If the

Now, we boot an initrd and load there openafs module and start afsd. With
coda we plan to boot an initrd, start venus from there (maybe an older
version), fetch venus from the server and restart this up to date
version.

> venus cache is stored in memory (ramfs/tmpfs) you really don't even need
> RVM, it is possible to store all the metadata in malloc'ed memory which

How malloc's this? venus or kernel?

Joerg.
end.
-- 
	       	   	       			(Marcel Reich-Ranicki)