[ros-dev] IFS wrapper project proposal draft

Adam geekdundee at gmail.com
Tue Apr 5 12:17:03 UTC 2011 

That's what I remember. I think it was originally JFS1 or something and it  
became JFS later on.

It was then made for OS/2 Warp and then it got open-sourced for Linux  
distros.

I could be wrong; but I am 98% sure I am correct about this.

On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 22:15:50 +1000, Love Nystrom <love.nystrom at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> You sure it was ported AIX -> OS/2, and not the other way around?
>
> WBR // Love
>
> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 5:57 PM, Adam <geekdundee at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> AFAIK only NTFS has this root; JFS has been around for a while in the  
>> AIX
>> systems. It was ported to OS/2 Warp 4.5 later on.
>>
>> Well at least they're both better than all that
>> ext1/ext2/ext3/ext4/extπ/whatever gibberish. The biggest problem is  
>> (and it
>> has actually happened to me before) these guys can run out of "inodes"  
>> and
>> what not.
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:40:09 +1000, Love Nystrom  
>> <love.nystrom at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>  Hi Adam,
>>>
>>> Thanks for the pointer.
>>> JFS may be a viable alternative to NTFS indeed, they probably have the
>>> same
>>> root (HPFS)?
>>>
>>> The bulk of porting it to ReactOS will probably be "un-porting" it's  
>>> Linux
>>> kernel dependency patches.
>>> I'm fetching the whole CVS repository from SourceForge right now, but  
>>> I'm
>>> not sure when
>>> I will get the time to start eyeballing it .. I should be doing RL  
>>> stuff
>>> today but find my butt
>>> glued to the chair again
>>> (Water_stoppage==Shower_impossible==I_refuse_to_go_public)!
>>>
>>> Peace
>>> // Love
>>>
>>> On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Adam <geekdundee at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>  I would also recommend looking at porting JFS - the sources are
>>>> available.
>>>> This is the file system that IBM originally used in OS/2 Warp 4.5X  
>>>> (and
>>>> also
>>>> AIX if I am not mistaken) and is a very solid file system. Something  
>>>> IBM
>>>> seemed to be doing right.
>>>>
>>>> I am not sure about all the details of it, but AFAIK it also supports
>>>> things like ACLs too.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, 05 Apr 2011 17:56:40 +1000, Love Nystrom  
>>>> <love.nystrom at gmail.com
>>>> >
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  Hi Bryan,
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Just like Aleksey, I would welcome an effort to simplify IFS
>>>>> implementation.
>>>>>
>>>>> Seen as NTFS is (and always will be?) not well documented, I've been
>>>>> thinking about
>>>>> supporting some alternative, OSS, journaling file system in ReactOS,
>>>>> e.g.
>>>>> ReiserFS,
>>>>> to allow us to provide the (relative) fail-safety of file transaction
>>>>> journaling that NTFS has.
>>>>> Also, hopefully, to enable us to implement NT's access privilege
>>>>> system (Security) on files.
>>>>>
>>>>> So far, it remains just a thought, since I can't allocate the time to
>>>>> adapt
>>>>> e.g ReiserFS to
>>>>> an NT IFS, and if I'm not mistaken, our IFS implementation has
>>>>> shortcomings
>>>>> of it's own
>>>>> which You may need to address as well in implementing Your proposal.
>>>>>
>>>>> In addition to "Windows NT File System Internals" I would also  
>>>>> recommend
>>>>> "Windows Internals, 4th Edition" for additional/complementary  
>>>>> insight.
>>>>> Especially Ch.12 "File Systems", but Ch.8-12 are all relevant, and  
>>>>> the
>>>>> whole
>>>>> book is strongly recommended (by everyone, I think).
>>>>>
>>>>> It will be a BIG job I think (thesis big), and I hope You have the
>>>>> structural
>>>>> "common sense" to make it a success, and not a mess ;).
>>>>> It would be most welcome !
>>>>>
>>>>> Comment Your code scrupulously :)
>>>>>
>>>>> Best Regards
>>>>> // Love
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 1:55 PM, <ros-dev-request at reactos.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>  ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>>>>
>>>>>> From: Bryan Donlan <bdonlan at gmail.com>
>>>>>> To: ReactOS Development List <ros-dev at reactos.org>
>>>>>> Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 18:26:23 -0400
>>>>>> Subject: [ros-dev] [GSoC] IFS wrapper project proposal draft
>>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> After reading the ReactOS GSoC ideas page, I became interested in  
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> IFS wrapper driver project idea[1], and would appreciate any  
>>>>>> comments
>>>>>> on my project proposal before I formally submit it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> First, a bit about me. I am a student in a dual-major program,
>>>>>> studying Computer Science and Japanese at the University of
>>>>>> Massachusetts at Amherst. I have had some experience in kernel
>>>>>> development previously; as part of an internship at a research  
>>>>>> project
>>>>>> at my University, I wrote some network flow analysis code running in
>>>>>> the Linux kernel. While filesystem work will be a first for me, I
>>>>>> think it will be an interesting leaning experience. I am fluent in
>>>>>> English and Japanese, and am in the UTC-0400 timezone  
>>>>>> (TZ=US/Eastern).
>>>>>> My freenode username is bd_, and my myReactOS username is bdonlan.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In preparation for writing this proposal, I obtained a copy of the
>>>>>> "Windows NT File System Internals: A Developer's Guide" book from
>>>>>> O'Reilly. Although a bit dated, it has been enourmously helpful in
>>>>>> helping me get an idea of what I'm getting into.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> My goal in this project will be to write a library to significantly
>>>>>> simplify writing a NT File System Driver. Although writing a
>>>>>> kernel-mode filesystem will never be as easy as with, eg, FUSE, it
>>>>>> should be possible to abstract away many of the idiosyncracies of  
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> NT filesystem API, at least. For example, the wrapper library may
>>>>>> handle:
>>>>>> * Automatically queueing asynchronous filesystem operations on a  
>>>>>> worker
>>>>>> thread
>>>>>> * Parsing paths and invoking a FS-supplied traversal function for  
>>>>>> each
>>>>>> directory element
>>>>>> * Interfacing with the NT cache manager, including flushing data  
>>>>>> from
>>>>>> the cache when a non-cached operation is performed on a cached file,
>>>>>> and establishing cache maps for the underlying device for a  
>>>>>> disk-based
>>>>>> file system
>>>>>> * Providing a common implementation of byte range locks and oplocks,
>>>>>> and disabling fast I/O when they are in use
>>>>>> * Caching directory entry lookups
>>>>>> * Performing typical input validation/security checks needed by all  
>>>>>> NT
>>>>>> filesystems
>>>>>> * Helper tools may also be provided to load pseudo-filesystems
>>>>>> (filesystems with neither network nor disk backing) on an ad-hoc  
>>>>>> basis
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Essentially, the library should make it easy for the filesystem
>>>>>> designer to focus on the actual filesystem, rather than the NT IFS
>>>>>> interfaces - a read call would be able to skip all the preparation  
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> checks, and directly go to perform the actual I/O.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Major milestones for the project may include:
>>>>>> - Prepare a sketch of the API and callbacks for the IFS helper  
>>>>>> library
>>>>>> (subject to change if necessary)
>>>>>> - Implement enough of the wrapper library to implement a simple
>>>>>> pseudo-filesystem demonstrating non-cached reads and writes
>>>>>> - Add support for cached reads/writes (interaction with the cache
>>>>>> manager, caching for on-disk metadata)
>>>>>> - Demonstrate a disk-based filesystem without metadata update  
>>>>>> support
>>>>>> (MINIX FS or FAT?)
>>>>>> - Demonstrate a disk-based filesystem with full read-write support
>>>>>> - If time allows, add support for ancillary features, such as byte
>>>>>> locks, oplocks, and notify watchers.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The interfaces exposed by the filesystem library will of course be
>>>>>> clearly documented. Filesystems needing more advanced support will
>>>>>> also be able to override any IFS callbacks they choose.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I have an existing consulting commitment that will take some of my
>>>>>> time, but I expect to be able to put in 20-30 hours of work per week
>>>>>> into this project. Further, I hereby swear that I have not used nor
>>>>>> seen the source code to any version of the Windows operating system
>>>>>> nor any Microsoft product that may be related to the proposed  
>>>>>> project
>>>>>> that is under a license incompatible with contribution to ReactOS,
>>>>>> including but not limited to the leaked Windows 2000 source code and
>>>>>> the Windows Research Kernel.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I would appreciate any comments on my proposal before formally
>>>>>> submitting it to the GSoC site.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Bryan Donlan
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>> --
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