README

VMware has ended active development of this project, this repository will no longer be updated.

LogFS/CloudFS log-structured, replicated file system for ESX
============================================================


Building with scons
===================

Build the 'cloudfs' kernel module, and the userspace tools:

$ scons cloudfs replicator cloudfs

Copy the kernel module to your debug ESX box:

$ scp bora/build/scons/package/devel/linux32/opt/esx/vmkmod-vmkernel64-signed/cloudfs \
  bora/build/scons/package/devel/linux32/obj/esx/apps/cloudfs/cloudfs \
  bora/build/scons/package/devel/linux32/obj/esx/apps/replicator/replicator \
  root@mybox:

Alternative: Build with jam (YOU PROBABLY WANT TO IGNORE THIS)
===========================

Usually your Linux distro has a 'jam' or 'ftjam' package, make sure that is 
installed.

Link vmk/Jamrules to the top of your tree, e.g., 

$ cd ~/src/vmkernel-main
$ ln -s bora/modules/vmkernel/cloudfs/vmk/Jamrules .
$ cd bora/modules/vmkernel/cloudfs

Then to build everything, type:

$ jam
or for an 'opt' build:
$ jam -sRELEASE=1

The output files will be in jambuild/obj or jambuild/opt at the top of your
tree.

I use jam because it allows me to build everything in one go, and its like
1000x faster than scons. However, scons should work as well so feel free to
ignore this if you enjoy the little breaks during the day that building with
scons will give you. 


Loading the kernel module on your ESXi box
==========================================

# vmkload_mod cloudfs

Format and storage from an existing partition: For my system this means:

# export disk=mpx.vmhba2:C0:T0:L0:2
# cloudfs nuke /dev/disks/${disk}
# /sbin/vmkload_mod /bin/cloudfs 
# /sbin/vsish -e set /vmkModules/cloudfs/device ${disk}

( make sure the 'cloudfs' tool is in your path)

Though we do support replica recovery after a restart, for playing with
CloudFS it is recommended that you always 'nuke' (which just zeroes the
beginning of the disk partition) the disk you use after restart.
Its nice to have a blank slate when you start out.

Note: If you get a permission error it may be because the partition
type is not set to 0xfb (VMFS) in fdisk, or because VMFS had already
formatted the partition and does not want to let go of it.

Running CloudFS from a file instead of a full partition
=======================================================

You can also use load the filedriver module and use vmkmkdev to create a
'loopback' device that points to a big file in your filesystem, to not have to
use a full partition for CloudFS.

I use the following script when running with filedriver-backed disks.

vmkload_mod filedriver

disk=cloudfsdevice

if [ -e /vmfs/volumes/local/log ]
then
echo reuse existing log
else
dd if=/dev/zero of=log bs=100000 count=560000
fi

vmkmkdev -Y file -o /vmfs/volumes/local/log $disk


Running the userspace replicator
================================

The cloudfs kernel module takes care of the IO path from the VMs to the local
disk, and provides an HTTP interface that peers can connect to and clone local
volumes.  To handle the actual placement of replicas in your cluster of
machines, you need to run the replicator user world process. It needs as input
a unique 160-bit host-id (like the SHA-1 hash of your MAC address or some
completely random number, it has to stay constant across host reboots) and a
list of host IPs that it can connect to to start assembling its network.


Creating a new volume
=====================

Once you have that running and your hosts have had a few seconds to discover
one another, you can try to create a new virtual disk with:

# cloudfs newdisk
e74c6b44184f639b0b3e550b044e667078905573 (the ID of your new disk)

If you have less than 3 hosts, you need to force the creation of a smaller
replica set with 

# cloudfs newdisk 1 
or
# cloudfs newdisk 2 

It should tell you on which hosts it randomly decided to create replicas,
and write the unique volume-id for your virtual disk to stdout. If you
are on a host that has a replica, you can check that your disk was created in
/dev/cloudfs:

# ls /dev/cloudfs/

b104aec69fbb6384b678bf9f5d0209453969b8e9
b104aec69fbb6384b678bf9f5d0209453969b8e9.info
b104aec69fbb6384b678bf9f5d0209453969b8e9.secret


You have now created a new virtual disk. It's size is fixed to an arbitrary constant (8GB)
right now, but that is only because we have to report a number when the VM asks. You
can refer to this file in your .vmdk-file, as in:


"""
# Disk DescriptorFile
version=1
CID=ffb8cc59
parentCID=ffffffff
createType="vmfs"

# Extent description

RW 20971520 VMFS "/dev/cloudfs/b104aec69fbb6384b678bf9f5d0209453969b8e9"
# The Disk Data Base
#DDB

ddb.virtualHWVersion = "6"
ddb.uuid = "60 00 C2 91 bf 96 ab 1a-23 d7 5f 0c 9c 9c 28 e8"
ddb.geometry.cylinders = "5120"
ddb.geometry.heads = "128"
ddb.geometry.sectors = "32"
ddb.adapterType = "lsilogic"
"""


- And once that is done you can start a VM using vmx.
If you don't want to go through the trouble of booting a VM with vmx, you can also try
cat'ing some data to the new file from the console instead.

Now for the interesting part. The cloudfs vmkernel module runs a tiny HTTP server on port 8090.
You can view the virtual disks (files) remotely. On the box, try:

# wget -O- http://127.0.0.1:8090/heads

(substitute the real IP of your host if doing this remotely)

You will get a list of all disks (currently just the one you created) and their version 
numbers, as in:

b104aec69fbb6384b678bf9f5d0209453969b8e9:b104aec69fbb6384b678bf9f5d0209453969b8e9

If the two numbers are equal, it means the disk 0 revisions. Once you have written to the 
disk (try echo'ing or cat'ing some data to it), the numbers should be different, as in:

b104aec69fbb6384b678bf9f5d0209453969b8e9:201151e19dbe1e368f7c802475edf767c65cef28

The number on the left is the base version ('version 0') of the disk, and the disk's
global UUID. The number to the right identifies the current version ('version n').

To retrieve deltas from a version and to the most recent one, try:

# wget -O- http://127.0.0.1:8090/stream?b104aec69fbb6384b678bf9f5d0209453969b8e9 | strings
 
which should print a lot of semi-garbage, corresponding to the changes you made to the disk.
If you have more than one ESX box configured with cloudfs, you can instead pipe the output of
wget into the special file /dev/cloudfs/log , and you will have achieved live replication of
your virtual disk!

There is a special tool called 'replicator' that does basically the same thing, but avoids
some bugs in busybox's wget, so this will be preferable, but wget is good for getting the
general idea. You can run replicator (on another host), as:

$ replicator <host-id> [peer-ip...]

Using the POSIX shim
====================

You can choose to format volumes as VMFS3 with vmkfstools -C, to make each CloudFS volume
a separate VMFS-backed POSIX namespace, where you can store .vmx and .swp files etc. 
with your VM. However, CloudFS also contains a tiny and very experimental POSIX shim
that you can use without formatting as VMFS. Here, volumes show up under 
/vmfs/volumes/cloudfs, but as with an NFS automounter you need to do an 'ls' there 
for them to appear.

So assuming you just created the volume b104aec69fbb6384b678bf9f5d0209453969b8e9 with
the 'cloudfs newdisk' command, try:

# ls /vmfs/volumes/cloudfs/b104aec69fbb6384b678bf9f5d0209453969b8e9
# cd /vmfs/volumes/cloudfs/b104aec69fbb6384b678bf9f5d0209453969b8e9
# touch foo
# ls

This should work on any host running the replicator. For the first request, what will
happen is that the cloudfs kernel module fires off an HTTP request to its local replicator
trying to read volume b104aec69fbb6384b678bf9f5d0209453969b8e9. If the volume is 
unknown at the local host, it will get an HTTP redirect to another host that is likely
to be in the replica set, which is repeated until the current primary for the 
volume is hit. From there on the hosts stay connected and data is served directly over
HTTP GET/PUT requests. The POSIX shim is currently very bare-bones and experimental, 
and DO NOT try to use the same volume both as a raw device and as a POSIX namespace, 
it will probably PSOD on you if you try.




Branches (CURRENTLY DISABLED)
========

CloudFS supports branching (snapshotting/cloning) a virtual disk. To branch
a disk you need to know its current version id, which can be found by

$ cat /dev/cloudfs/$DISK.info

so what you will normally do is:

$ cloudsfs branch `cat /dev/cloudfs/$DISK.info`

A new writable branch with a random id will now show up under /dev/cloudfs.
Any active replicas will notice the branch, and start mirroring it right away.