On Sun, Aug 10, 2003 at 08:06:48PM +0200, Ivan Popov wrote:
> Having come back from a long vacation.
> Glad to see you again!

I hope you had a nice time. It sure sounds like you got some rest ;)

> > > >     /coda-realms/			- normal 6.0 root
> > > >     /coda -> /coda-realms/local.realm	- a symlink for our current realm
> 
> Local links are evil, just imagine a host administered by Math department
> but used by Physics' students, what would their scripts find, whose
> /coda/.... ???
> how would they get to their homedirs ? arrange a forest of links ?

I agree, /coda/local.realm is the way to go. There is one thing I
probably could probably have done better. Currently all clients use
'GetRootVolume' to figure out the root of the realm. (I know that you
like the alternative change that a lookup for a volume named '/' does
effectively the same thing)

But this could have been used as an intermediate migration step. If 6.0
clients would have used the '/' volume lookup, or a new GetRealmRoot RPC
call, then the administrator could create a new rootvolume which is only
mounted by old clients and contains a single mountpoint named "local.realm"
that points at the real root volume. New client find the normal root
with the new RPC or the '/'-style volume lookup.

This way both 5.3 and 6.0 clients can see and use the new 'global naming
scheme'. It still requires a migration of all precompiled binaries on
the system, but at least it doesn't force an upgrade of all existing
clients.

Jan