Technical Report (TR98-01) Cover Page

Title:

Operating System Support for Easy Development of Distributed File Systems

Authors:

Kenichi Kourai, Shigeru Chiba, and Takashi Masuda

Key words and phrases:

multi-level protection, fail-safe mechanism, distributed file system, operating system

Abstract:

A number of new distributed file systems have been developed, but the development of such file systems is not a simple task because it requires the operating system kernel to be modified. We have therefore developed an operating system in which a new file system is implemented as an extension module separated from the kernel. The operating system makes the file system easy to debug by protecting the kernel from errors of the file system, and it differs from similar operating systems in that it avoids unnecessary performance degradation by enabling the protection level to be changed without modifying the source code. We have implemented this operating system on the basis of NetBSD 1.2 and confirmed that the file system can run more efficiently when the protection level is decreased.

Report date:

August 6, 1998

Written language:

English

Total number of pages:

9

Number of references:

13

Any other identifying information of this report:

A short version of this paper will appear in Proceedings of the 1998 Parallel and Distributed Computing and Systems.

Distribution statement:

First issue 35 copies.

Supplementary notes: