README revision 1.1
11.1Srvb Announcing the Availability of the 21.1Srvb Coda Distributed 31.1Srvb Filesystem 41.1Srvb for 51.1Srvb BSD Unix Systems 61.1Srvb 71.1Srvb Coda is a distributed file system like NFS and AFS. It is 81.1Srvbfreely available, like NFS. But it functions much like AFS in being a 91.1Srvb"stateful" file system. Coda and AFS cache files on your local 101.1Srvbmachine to improve performance. But Coda goes a step further than AFS 111.1Srvbby letting you access the cached files when there is no available 121.1Srvbnetwork, viz. disconnected laptops and network outages. In Coda, both 131.1Srvbthe client and server are outside the kernel which makes them easier 141.1Srvbto experiment with. 151.1Srvb 161.1SrvbTo get more information on Coda, I would like to refer people to 171.1Srvb http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu 181.1SrvbThere is a wealth of documents, papers, theses there. There is also a 191.1Srvbgood introduction to the Coda File System in 201.1Srvb http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/ljpaper/lj.html 211.1Srvb 221.1SrvbCoda was originally developed as an academic prototype/testbed. It is 231.1Srvbbeing polished and rewritten where necessary. Coda is a work in 241.1Srvbprogress and does have bugs. It is, though, very usable. Our 251.1Srvbinterest is in making Coda available to as many people as possible and 261.1Srvbto have Coda evolve and flourish. 271.1Srvb 281.1SrvbThe bulk of the Coda file system code supports the Coda client 291.1Srvbprogram, the Coda server program and the utilities needed by both. 301.1SrvbAll these programs are unix programs and can run equally well on any 311.1SrvbUnix platform. Our main development thrust is improving these 321.1Srvbprograms. There is a small part of Coda that deals with the kernel to 331.1Srvbfile system interface. This code is OS specific (but should not be 341.1Srvbplatform specific). 351.1Srvb 361.1SrvbCoda is currently available for several OS's and platforms: 371.1Srvb Freebsd-2.2.5: i386 381.1Srvb Freebsd-2.2.6: i386 391.1Srvb Freebsd -current: i386 401.1Srvb linux 2.0: i386 & sparc 411.1Srvb linux 2.1: i386 & sparc 421.1Srvb NetBSD 1.3: i386 431.1Srvb NetBSD -current: i386 441.1SrvbThe relevant sources, binaries, and docs can be found in 451.1Srvb ftp://ftp.coda.cs.cmu.edu/pub/coda/ 461.1Srvb 471.1SrvbWe intend to come out with new Coda releases often, not daily. We 481.1Srvbdon't wish to slight any OS/platform not mentioned above. We are just 491.1Srvblimited in our resources as to what we can support internally. We 501.1Srvbwill be happy to integrate OpenBSD support as well as other OS 511.1Srvbsupport. Also, adding platform support is relatively easy and we can 521.1Srvbdiscuss this. The only problem is that Coda has a light weight 531.1Srvbprocess package. It does some manipulations in assembler which would 541.1Srvbhave to be redone for a different platform. 551.1Srvb 561.1SrvbThere are several mailing lists @coda.cs.cmu.edu that discuss coda: 571.1Srvbcoda-announce and linux-coda. We are going to revise linux-coda to be 581.1SrvbOS neutral, since it is mainly Coda we want to discuss. We appreciate 591.1Srvbcomments, feedback, bug reports, bug fixes, enhancements, etc. 601.1Srvb 61