An Installable File System for Genesis II

Chris SosaNovember 2, 2007

Preliminaries

Target Operating System (for now): Windows XP

Definitions Installable File System – A file system

driver (FSD) that can be added to an operating system

Network Redirector - An FSD that provides access to files on remote machines

Motivation User transparency

Difficult for users to adapt Users don’t want to adapt

Application transparency Can’t change I/O libraries Legacy applications

Strong Security Model Security model that is both

flexible and “powerful” Testing ground for new research

ideas in Caching for Grids

Installable File System

Benefits

Acts as an entire file system to applications

Can integrate with any security model

Kernel responsible for I/O Calls

Design

Three Areas of Concern Java Kernel User-mode

Mediator

??? – User to Kernel Communication

DESIGN ALTERNATIVES Local Procedure Calls

Used in older versions of drivers in the Kernel

Conceptually easier Undocumented and

unsupported Inverted Call Model

User calls Kernel Responds More Tricky than LPC’s

Progress Mediator is complete Java-side is complete Genesis II Kernel Driver

Inverted Calls in Kernel is complete Read-only FS works Can handle multiple calls at once Writes work Making step by step progress on completing last

aspects of Full FS Create Move Rename Etc

Issues

Kernel programming is slow Error tends to hose the host system Cannot modify code when testing Windows DDK is mostly

undocumented Knowledge in the area is scarce

Other Approaches Have Genesis II implement the NFS

namespace and use the NFS driver to mount Genesis II “No” Security Confining Not flexible in terms of Future Research

Shell Extension - Extension to Windows Explorer to “visually” integrate Genesis II into Windows

I/O Library – A library that implements the Standard I/O API (see OGRSH)

Future Work

1. Complete work on IFS2. Use Genesis II Security Model to full

extent3. Perform research in new areas of

caching for the Grid

Demo