We are about to release a new version of MooseFS which would include a large number of new features and bug fixes. The new features are so significant that we decided to release it under 1.6 version. The newest beta files are in the GIT repository.

The key new features/changes of MooseFS 1.6 would include:

• General:
  • Removed duplicate source files.
  • Strip whitespace at the end of configuration file lines.
• Chunkserver:
  • Rewritten in multi-threaded model.
  • Added periodical chunk testing functionality (HDD_TEST_FREQ option).
  • New -v option (prints version and exits).
• Master:
  • Added "noowner" objects flag (causes objects to belong to current user).
  • Maintaining `mfsdirinfo` data online, so it doesn't need to be calculated on every request.
  • Filesystem access authorization system (NFS-like mfsexports.cfg file, REJECT_OLD_CLIENTS option) with ro/rw, maproot, mapall and password functionality.
  • New -v option (prints version and exits).
• Mount:
  • Rewritten options parsing in mount-like way, making possible to use standard FUSE mount utilities (see mfsmount(8) manual for new syntax). Note: old syntax is no longer accepted and mountpoint is mandatory now (there is no default).
  • Updated for FUSE 2.6+.
  • Added password, file data cache, attribute cache and entry cache options. By default attribute cache and directory entry cache are enabled, file data cache and file entry cache are disabled.
  • opendir() no longer reads directory contents- it's done on first readdir() now; fixes "rm -r" on recent Linux/glibc/coreutils combo.
  • Fixed mtime setting just before close() (by flushing file on mtime change); fixes mtime preserving on "cp -p".
  • Added statistics accessible through MFSROOT/.stats pseudo-file.
  • Changed master access method for mfstools (direct .master pseudo-file replaced by .masterinfo redirection); fixes possible mfstools race condition and allows to use mfstools on read-only filesystem.
• Tools:
  • Units cleanup in values display (exact values, IEC-60027/binary prefixes, SI/decimal prefixes); new options: -n, -h, -H and MFSHRFORMAT environment variable - refer to mfstools(8) manual for details).
  • mfsrgetgoal, mfsrsetgoal, mfsrgettrashtime, mfsrsettrashtime have been deprecated in favour of new "-r" option for mfsgetgoal, mfssetgoal, mfsgettrashtime, mfssettrashtime tools.
  • mfssnapshot utility replaced by mfsappendchunks (direct descendant of old utility) and mfsmakesnapshot (which creates "real" recursive snapshots and behaves similar to "cp -r").
  • New mfsfilerepair utility, which allows partial recovery of file with some missing or broken chunks.
• CGI scripts:
  • First public version of CGI scripts allowing to monitor MFS installation from WWW browser.