[Linux-cachefs] let's get more taskforce here

[hanzl at noel.feld.cvut.cz]

Dear yet small and young list,

I am sure there are people who would be happy to help with persistent
local disk caching in linux but did not discover this list yet. For
some years I closely monitor all attempts going this way and some
names of related people simply did not show up on this list yet.

So please consider a bit of propaganda:

- link some messages in this list from your related web pages

- drop a word on other related maillists

- post a message here containing related search terms aimed at
  prospective googlers

With the last item in mind, I beg your pardon and do declare few
things which you most likely know:

There were numerous attempts to make persistent local disk caching for
linux. Many created good prototype and demonstrated enormous
speedups. Unfortunately most of these attempts died on occasions like
'kernel_version+=0.2' or 'the end of PhD study'. People repeatedly cry
for this feature at various forums but the effort is very fragmented
so far. People who needed it badly enough ended up by creating their
own short-lived hack. I am aware of only two projects with this
feature which are alive: *AFS and Coda. Unfortunately you need special
server with these while many people would be happy with just a special
client (and normal NFS server).

Simple caching client code needs a safe place to live - mainstream
linux kernel is the only one which would be safe enough. Never before
I've seen any project to get so close, and I hope we will make it this
time ;-)

So here are some related projects (and search terms ;-) ):

    * Coda - needs special server and too small filesystem size
    * AFS - needs special server and too small filesystem size
    * Solaris cachefs - not available for linux thought many asked where it is
    * Ron Minnich's autocacher - based on old amd code which deos not compile today
    * Greg Badros's Disk-Caching NFS - no port for 2.4.x kernels
    * Intermezzo - intersync version never really worked and now is dead
    * things based on podfuk, userfs, uvfs, virtualfs, avfs, avfscoda, fuse, lufs
    * Probably several others I do not remember

Hello Googlers, please join us :-)

HTH

Vaclav Hanzl