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[Savannah-hackers] submission of Secure, Scalable Unicode Filesystem (Un
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jamesb . au |
Subject: |
[Savannah-hackers] submission of Secure, Scalable Unicode Filesystem (UniFS) - savannah.nongnu.org |
Date: |
Sat, 12 Jul 2003 07:57:42 -0400 |
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A package was submitted to savannah.nongnu.org
This mail was sent to address@hidden, address@hidden
J. Buchanan <address@hidden> described the package as follows:
License: gpl
Other License:
Package: Secure, Scalable Unicode Filesystem (UniFS)
System name: unifs
Type: non-GNU
Description:
There is no source code yet for this project, why will become clear in the
description that follows.
UniFS (may be renamed GnuFS after consulting with rms, in progress) is a new
free filesystem that scales to petabyte-sized storage devices, supports Unicode
internally, is based on extents rather than clumsy indirect blocks, supports
strong cryptography, compression, secure deletion of files, file slacks and
directories, supports the creation of encrypted swap space for the host
Operating System and may end up as a journaling filesystem. A requirement of
the filesystem is that it is self-healing and crash-proof.
The filesystem is organised into layers, with a *BSD and Linux compatible VFS
and Gnu Mach/HURD compatible server interface (which hooks into the VFS layer,
followed by the UniFS-specific layer, then a device-independent disk-driver
layer, then a layer of glue code that interfaces directly with device drivers
on the host Operating System.)
For compression, the UniFS will rely on GNU gzip, for strong cryptography, the
GnuPG-derived libgcrypt (found on the GNU alpha server), for character set
translation GNU iconv, and for the secure deletion, GNU shred (part of GNU
fileutils/coreutils).
Designing a filesystem that is for the most part Operating System and machine
independent is a mammoth task. In particular, ensuring that the filesystem
reaches its goal of scalability to petabyte sized secondary storage may be
impossible in the near future (but it will be tested on terabyte sized
storage.) The architecture and specification of the filesystem is near
complete, but coding will not commence until issues with the strong
cryptography have been sorted out, for example storage of symmetric keys
encrypted with public keys on disk extents or elsewhere on another filesystem,
and how application programmes take advantage of this; and there is the issue
of bypassing kernel page/buffer caches or implementing the filesystem's own
buffer/page cache.
Here is a brief overview of the filesystem architecture:
[VFS/HURD server layer]
Provides mount/unmount, read/write, fsync, open/close, ioctl, etc system call
stubs.
[UniFS layer]
Provides the filesystem functionality: on-disk structures shielded by the above
platform-independent layers (VFS and HURD server interfaces), cryptography and
compression, secure deletion, information needed by stat().
[Machine independent block I/O Layer]
Provides platform-independent interfacing to platform-dependent device drivers.
This layer must bypass the Operating System's virtual memory and cache
mechanisms.
[Device driver layer]
Provides "glue code" to interface with the actual disk drivers, and possibly
the filesystem's own buffer/page cache. In porting the filesystem, only this
layer and the top interface layer need be changed.
Initially documentation on the UniFS will be released (within the week).
Articles and references will also be supplied and requests for
comments/suggestions will be sought. No developers will be accepted by the
project until it begins the coding phase.
Other Software Required:
None that aren't already part of GNU, though it may use Diet libc instead of
Gnu libc. Diet libc is free software too.
Other Comments:
I have sent rms details of the filesystem and await his comments, and I'll keep
the Savannah administrators updated on any progress.
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