[gfarm-announce:97150] Gfarm version 2.4.1 released

[Osamu Tatebe <tatebe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi all,

We are pleased to announce the release of

 * Gfarm file system version 2.4.1,
 * Gfarm2fs version 1.2.2,
 * [NEW] Gfarm Samba plug-in version 0.0.1.

		http://sourceforge.net/projects/gfarm/

This release supports not only functionalities not supported by the
version 2.4.0 but also the gfmd-initiated automatic file replica
creation.  The number of file replicas are specified by the extended
attribute gfarm.ncopy (of the ancient directory).

When you would like to create three file replicas for all newly
created files, specify three by the extended attribute gfarm.ncopy of
the / (root) directory as follows,

	% echo -n 3 | gfxattr -s / gfarm.ncopy

This release also includes many updates and some bug fixes.  We
strongly recommend to upgrade to this version.

Gfarm Samba plugin enables Windows clients to access the Gfarm file
system.  So far, it is possible by the samba server and gfarm2fs.  The
plugin replaces the gfarm2fs.  Note that it is reported that some
files cannot be listed in a directory having more than thousands of
files.  It is experimentally provided for now.

Release note for Gfarm 2.4.1
============================

[2010.12.30]

New Feature
* automatic replication in gfmd [sf.net trac #129]
  extended attribute 'gfarm.ncopy' specifies the number of file
  replicas to be created automatically.
  % echo -n 2 | gfxattr -s / gfarm.ncopy

New configuration in gfmd.conf
* no_file_system_node_timeout and gfmd_reconnection_timeout directives
  to specify the timeout to try to find a file system node and to
  reconnect to the gfmd, respectively.  Default is 30 seconds.
* known_network directive to specify a network for file system nodes.
  File system nodes not specified by the known_network directive are
  assumed to be in an IPv4 class C network as same as before.

Performance improvement
* gfmd-initiated file replication [sf.net trac #123]
* extended attribute cache in gfmd and libgfarm [sf.net trac #128]

Updated feature
* gfmd - check and repair nlinks at start-up [sf.net trac #57]
  unreferenced inodes moved to /lost+found
* gfsd - if the input/output error occurs, kill oneself to cope with
  the hardware failure [sf.net trac #85]
* select a file system node having enough capacity regardless of
  existent file replicas when a file is overwritten [sf.net #68]
* avoid scheduling conflict of file system nodes
* try another file replica when the specified physical file does not
  exist
* gfdf - -P option to specify the metadata server
* gfdf - -S and -r options to sort output by available capacity and in
  reverse order, respectively [sf.net trac #131]
* gfdf - -h and -H options to display sizes in human readable format
  [sf.net trac #126]
* gfmkdir - -p option to create parent directories if needed, and not
  to return error even if the target directory exists
* gfsched - -c option to schedule file system nodes for a file
  creation [sf.net trac #169]

Bug fix
* fix error handling of protocols in terms of extended attributes in
  gfmd [sf.net trac #124]
* gfmd - plug memory leak in case of authentication error [sf.net trac
  #166]
* gfmd - a file system node temporarily cannot be used if replication
  error happens due to the connection error to the source target
  [sf.net trac #162]
* Won't compile on FreeBSD 7.3 [sf.net trac #138]
* gfrep - may fail to create two or more file replicas [sf.net trac
  #114]
* gfrep - gfrep may cause no space left on device [sf.net trac #152]

---
Osamu Tatebe
Department of Computer Science, University of Tsukuba
1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 3058577 Japan