[gfarm-announce:00167] Gfarm version 1.2 RC2

[Osamu Tatebe <o.tatebe@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello all,

We are pleased to announce the release of Gfarm version 1.2 Release
Candidate 2.  Gfarm is a high-performance reliable file system that
scales to Petascale Data-intensive computing in a Grid.

		     http://datafarm.apgrid.org/

This release improves not only response time further, but also
reliability, scalability, and fault tolerance such as

* realize stable access from Windows client via Samba (UTF-8 filename
  support),

* realize scalable I/O performance from 50 clients using scientific
  applications,

* tolerate failure of metadb server (slapd) such as rebooting and
  temporal network failure,

* introduce file locking feature against replication during updating
  the file, which prevents from creating inconsistent file replicas.

Also, this release fixes several bugs including a race condition by
multiple client processes.

We would like to announce Gfarm version 1.2 at the end of next week.
We appreciate your comments and feedback.

The software can be downloaded from: http://datafarm.apgrid.org/

Bug tracking system is available at http://datafarm.apgrid.org/bugzilla/

Copyright (c) 2003, 2004, 2005 National Institute of Advanced
Industrial Science and Technology (AIST).  All Rights Reserved.

Release note for Gfarm 1.2 (RC2)
================================

[2005.8.31]

Updated Features

 * UTF-8 support.

 * FreeBSD and NetBSD supports.

 * File locking support against replication during updating the file,
   which prevents from creating inconsistent file replicas.

 * A newly created file can be accessed by other processes before it
   is closed.

 * When copying, moving and removing executable files, only the target
   architecture section of the executable files is modified.  This
   means you can install and remove executable binaries in different
   architecture independently or separately.

 * gfarm.conf(5) - add client_architecture directive to specify a
   client architecture.

 * Environment variable

  - GFARM_CONFIG_FILE environment variable can specify a Gfarm
    configuration file instead of ~/.gfarmrc. (Bugzilla-ja #38)

  - GFARM_ARCHITECTURE environment variable can specify a client
    architecture.

 * configure - honors the --sysconfdir option to specify a directory
   of gfarm.conf.

 * gfsd(8), gfmd(8) - accepts level N limited proxy to enable access to
   Gfarm file system from a process invoked by Globus jobmanager.

 * gfrm(1) - supports recursive deletion of (file replicas of) a
   particular file section.

 * gfkey(1) - the -p option is added to specify the term of validity
   in second.

 * gfs_unlink_section(3) - new function to unlink a particular section
   of a file.

 * gfs_pio_sync(3), gfs_pio_datasync(3) - new functions

 * gfs_seekdir(3), gfs_telldir(3) - new functions

 * Syscall hooking library

  - New syscall hook entries; fsync, fdatasync, pread, pread64,
    pwrite, and pwrite64.

  - lseek(2) hook supports a seek operation for a directory.
    (Bugzilla-ja #36, #37)

  - stat(2) hook fills 'st_blocks' in struct stat, which makes "du"
    command work.

 * Robustness Improvement

  - gfarm_agent(1) - the functionality is enhanced to accept all
    metadata requests.  When using gfarm_agent, client programs do not
    connect to an LDAP server, which reduces the number of connections
    to the LDAP server and CPU load of the LDAP server.

  - libgfarm(3) - tries to re-connect when the connection to an LDAP
    server is broken due to rebooting or some other reason.

 * Documentation

   - samba-hook, samba-gfarmfs - describes how to export a Gfarm file
     system to Windows clients via samba.

   - nfs-gfarmfs - describes how to export a Gfarm file system in NFS.

   - export-gfarm - summarizes the status to export a Gfarm file
     system in various protocols including FTP, HTTP, CIFS, and NFS.

 * Bug fix

  - fix a segfault problem or inappropriate error message problem when
    Gfarm I/O libraries are called before calling gfarm_initialize.
    (Bugzilla-ja #32)

  - fix a race condition when multiple processes try to fix an invalid
    metadata.

  - gfarm_initialize(3) disables the syscall hook library discussin in
    gfarm-discuss-ja mailing list.
    https://datafarm.apgrid.org/ml/gfarm-discuss-ja/msg00046.html

  - '=' cannot be included in a filename.

  - gfreg creates a file whose name is '-' when 'cat file | gfreg -
    gfarm:dir' (bugzilla-ja #35)

  - a remote file opened by a process can be closed by the child
    process.

  - fix memory leak.

  - gfreg(1) - fix a bug related to the -r option.

  - fix a segfault problem when using an old tcsh and gfarm_agent.

  - unlink(2) hook cannot remove a file with no fragment information.

---
Osamu Tatebe, Ph.D.   Tel: +81-29-861-5844  FAX: +81-29-862-6601
Grid Technology Research Center,
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)
AIST Tsukuba Central 2, 1-1-1 Umezono, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 3058568 JAPAN
E-mail: o.tatebe@xxxxxxxxxx     http://phase.hpcc.jp/people/tatebe/