Notes related to an OpenAFS 1.8 branch
The current plan is to make a branch for 1.8 off of master on or about 24 September 2014. This will allow all of the improvements and cleanup that have accumulated on master to be in a stable release series, while letting potentially destabilizing changes such as rxgk and pthreaded bos land on master to settle.
A 1.8 release would also bring the possibility of using shared libraries, which are now available with the use of libtool. Currently (on master), all executable binaries are still linked mostly statically, and most of the shared libraries that are produced during the build are not installed to the destination tree. Exceptions are libafshcrypto.so, libkopenafs.so, and librokenafs.so. We could consider installing more shared libraries, and using dynamic linking for executables, either before or after the branch point. Doing so would involve deciding on what sorts of ABI stability guarantees should be provided.
The remainder of this page has three separate lists, for things to be done before branching, things to be removed from the 1.8 branch after it is created, and things to be removed from master after the 1.8 branch is created.
Things to be done pre-branching (aka before pre1):
- [done] Make roken, hcrypto, and kopenafs use libtool to build
- [done] Make sure libtool is used properly elsewhere, in particular to install shared versions of libafsrpc and libafsauthent, which we ship in 1.6 but do not currently install on master
- [done] Relatedly, verify that the libraries we do ship do not depend on things that we don't ship.
- [done; unfeasible] (Optional) Look at the feasibility of installing shared liboafs_foo, and using dynamic linkage for the client utilities.
- (rxosd is not going to make it unless someone steps up to do the work; we can't block the branch indefinitely on it.)
- [we have some experience/results here] Do install and run testing on various platforms; check for memory leaks in servers, etc..
- [done] Relatedly, check that the kernel module is properly built and loadable on a variety of linuxen.
- [done] Draft Debian packaging (which will help with a lot of the libtool validation).
- [done] Whitespace cleanup.
- [the time for this has passed] Any other tree-wide cleanup that people want to get in.
- [partially? done] Adjust the default behavior of configure (pthreaded ubik? more?)
- [some work was done] Beg and plead for documentation updates.
- [done] Tie the installation of the pam module to --enable/disable-kauth
- [done] fix issues with HOST_TO_ZERO and tmay (see gerrit 11287/11290 and related)
- [done] Go through outstanding changes against master and determine which should get pulled in for 1.8
- [done] Document KeyFileExt and how to migrate keys from 1.6 to 1.8 format (akeyconvert was written)
- [done] Document asetkey list for KeyFileExt keys
- [done] remove vos release -stayup
- [partially done, for salvager changes] Investigate volume header update issues; volume update time is not changed by admin operations that alter metadata such as quota, which could subsequently get lost.
Things to be done before 1.8 release (but not necessarily before branching):
- Documentation fixes (which ones?)
- [reverted] Investigate "lockless path through d_revalidate" for potential issues
- Consider defaulting Unix CMs to have crypt mode be the default, and use authenticated connections to the VL server.
Things to be removed from 1.8 post-branch:
src/rxgk
; it is not going to be usable in 1.8src/mcas
; it is not going to be usable in 1.8
Things to be removed from master post-branch:
- Several
tfoo
can probably be moved to justfoo
; things liketptserver
,tvlserver
,tvolser
,tsalvaged
. I'm not sure whethertbudb
and/ortbutc
are ready. - push to empty out libutil as much as possible.
- convert xstat et all from LWP to pthread
- rip out LWP support (move to kauth?)
- it is tempting to remove kauth, but probably not possible due to agreements with IBM., move to historical?
make dest
support? Pretty-please?- upserver ? Note: This is still in use at numerous sites, so is not currently a good candidate for removal
- non-DA fileserver and associated bitmap-later and fast-restart configure knobs
- inode fileserver? and src/fsck
Other candidates for removal:
- src/afsinstall
- src/afsweb
- src/JAVA and TechNotes-JavaAPI