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NFS version 4

NFSv4 adds a number of powerful new features to NFS, including efficient client-side caching, strong security, and more. In order to make version 4 of NFS the new industry standard for Linux, these features must be thoroughly and frequently tested to ensure they are functional, robust, performant, and secure.

The goals for testing NFSv4 on Linux are to make it more stable, more mature, more interoperable with other NFS implementations, and to improve the entire ecosystem of software that interacts with NFS.

OSDL's goal is to facilitate this testing, by helping to establish a community testing effort. This includes assisting with creating a 'Test Matrix' that itemizes the testing needs, providing opportunities for members of the community to meet (via conference calls, email, and face to face meetings), and participating in designing and running tests in a few areas, as follows:

  • Regression testing
  • Installation testing
  • Configuration robustness

NFSv4 Testing News

Animation of performance improvement in NFSv4

February 28, 2007 - Here is an animated visual of iozone performance on the NFSv4 CITI kernel patches for the past year. The performance jumps are due to fixes to performance regressions in the kernel, that were also affecting NFSv3. Now the performance is very close to the theoretical maximum of the hardware.

Iozone performance history

-- Bryce

OSDL merges with FSG

January 21, 2007 - As of today, OSDL is merging with FSG. The areas of focus for this new organization include sponsoring key Linux developers, providing legal services, managing the Linux trademark, providing IP protection, standardizing Linux, hosting events, and serving as a neutral spokesman to advance the interest of Linux.

Crucible 1.7 release

November 6, 2006 - Much has changed in this release, most notably including a new, easy to use installation system and a ton of improvements to kernel patching, building, and booting. This is the test harness we're using at OSDL for testing NFSv4 among other things. There's been a lot of interest in it over the past few months, so for this release we've focused on simplifying installation so it's easier to "kick the tires".

Download here:

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/crucible/crucible-1.7.tar.gz

-- Bryce

NFSv4 Press Release

October 25, 2006 - OSDL has published a press release encouraging enterprise users to begin testing NFSv4 in their environments.

"The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), the global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux and open source software, today announced that the Network File System v4 (NFSv4) for Linux is available in Red Hat Enterprise Linux from Red Hat and SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell. This milestone reflects the maturity of NFSv4 for Linux in the enterprise and coincides with Network Appliances latest donation of $100,000 to the NFSv4 testing community."

-- Bryce

OLS Presentation on NFSv4 Testing

July 21, 2006 - I'm presenting the paper at OLS on the 22nd in Room B. This includes a number of interesting graphs of performance in a variety of situations, and summaries of what different groups are working on.

-- Bryce

Defect Density Improvements

March 12, 2006 - For the NFSv4 testing paper, I counted up the number of defects found through the per-patch cross compilation and regression test runs, and calculated the defects found per test run. Lo and behold, there's been a clear decline in defects found.

Regression Test Runs   Defect Density

Crucible 1.5 Release

March 11, 2006 - This is the latest release of the framework I use for doing NFS testing.

Crucible is a set of tools for automatically running tests on software patches. It is suited to doing tests of kernel code or of applications, and is designed for doing network testing between multiple machines.

Changes since 1.4 have focused on getting the multiple-machine automation working and debugged, and implementing some basic administrative tools.

Code: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=47517&package_id=161764

Website: http://crucible.sourceforge.net/

NFSv4 SysAdmin

March 10, 2006 - NetApp is providing sponsorship for OSDL to hire an NFSv4 sysadmin for 6 months. We are welcoming Jason Neighbors, who will be helping to set up additional hardware for testing, with automatic power management, bootloader updating, console logging, and reimaging.

Connectathon

Feb 27, 2006 - OSDL is participating in the 2006 Connectathon. Bryce will be giving a presentation on "NFSv4 and Open Source QA".

NFSv4 IRC Channel

January 18, 2006 - Avishay has established an IRC channel for NFSv4 development and testing discussion. It is on server irc.oftc.net, on the channel #linux-nfs.

News Archive

Other Sites

A number of companies participate in development and testing of NFS. This site seeks to provide a consolodated list of pointers that help describe who is doing what.