Tru64 (original) (raw)

Tru64 AdvFS Technology

What's AdvFS?

AdvFS is a file system that was developed by Digital Equipment Corp and continues to be part of HP's
Tru64 operating system. If you're not familiar with the Tru64 Advanced File System, you can check out
the product documentation on HP's web site.

What's cool about AdvFS?

AdvFS has a number of interesting features:

• Simplified file system and storage management
• Flexible multi-device storage pools shared by multiple file systems, with or without a volume manager
• Exceptional file system availability
• No need to take file systems off-line to expand, shrink or reconfigure
• Snapshots for consistent backups while applications are on-line
• Ability to recover deleted files
• Wide range of performance management tools
• Fine grain control over file system and file placement within the storage pool
• On-line rebalancing of files and free space across the storage pool
• On-demand or background file and file system defragmentation
• Transaction log management
• Choices for logging metadata and data (selectable at the file system or file level) asynchronously or synchronously What's available from this project?

This project is making available two generations of AdvFS source code, licensed under GPLv2 to be compatible with the Linux kernel. The first generation is the version that is currently shipping on Tru64 which represents a well tested enterprise quality file system that has been deployed worldwide for many years. The second generation is a port that was completed a few years ago but never productized. It includes major improvements to portions of the file system and is functionally complete but never went through extensive field or system testing. The source code is available from the download page.

We're also including design documentation for both code bases. The documentions includes the "Hitchhikers Guide to AdvFS", which describes the design of the Tru64 implemention of AdvFS, as well as training materials that go along with the Hitchhikers Guide. The design of the second generation is a set of component design specifications that describe changes and enhancements that we made as part of the port. The documentation is available from the download page.

We will also soon be making a set of test cases available so check back here again.

Our objective is to make the code available so that Linux developers can pick and choose pieces that make sense for existing and new linux file systems. Its also a good reference for anyone interested in file systems. However, we discourage Tru64 users from trying to build and use the code as it won't be supported by HP on Tru64.

How is the code licensed?

The code on this site is licensed under the GPLv2 to be compatible with the Linux kernel.

Questions?

If you have questions, please use the developers forum or send a note to the linux file system developers mailing list.