Coda-client and kernel panic

[Robert Watson]

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007, Aristeu Gil Alves Jr wrote:

> 2007/7/6, Aristeu Gil Alves Jr <aristeu.jr at gmail.com>:
>
>> I'm using a 6.2-RELEASE-p4, updated with freebsd-update. Installed 
>> coda-client-6.1.2 from ports. I'm having the same problems that were 
>> submitted on April 2006 for 7.0-CURRENT [1].
>> 
>> Coda-server is running apparently fine (I can't test it without the 
>> client).
>> 
>> Is coda-client usable in ANY freebsd supported versions? Are there any 
>> strict userlevel client available (to scape the kernel panic)?
> (...)
>> [1] http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=95891&cat=
>
> It seems to be a very big lack (almost a non existence) of communication 
> between freebsd and coda. The error reported in [1] seems to happen in every 
> distribution, from release to stable/current, and it´s fixed a long time ago 
> says the Coda Coders, from CMU [2]. Coda, at least to me, should be a very 
> active and stable project, since it´s one of the few storage projects on 
> developers page [3] (the only that is a distributed file system). Please, if 
> one of the submmiters is reading this, please contact Jan Harkes (jaharkes 
> at cs.cmu.edu) to solve the issue, and subscribe him to the bugtracker to 
> create some interaction between the projects.

The FreeBSD Project has a long history of granting commit rights to Coda 
developers in order to allow Coda developers to maintain the in-kernel Coda 
module -- Bob Baron, myself, and later Shafeeq Sinnamohideen.  I believe 
Shafeeq may still be affiliated with, or at least in the general physical 
vicinity of, the Coda Project.  I sent him e-mail in early June asking what 
the status of the Coda work was, and what, if anything, to do about the kernel 
module--I didn't hear back.  I see Jan has just submitted a number of kernel 
patches and will see about getting them into the tree before the 7.0 beta 
series starts.  There has been discussion of removing the Coda module from the 
kernel tree on the basis that it has been, until the last day or so, 
effectively unmaintained for several years.  However, if it's now maintained, 
then obviously that is neither necessary nor desirable.

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge