[Gfarm-announce] Gfarm version 2.5.0 released

[Osamu T. <ta...@cs...>]

Hi all,

We are pleased to announce the release of the Gfarm file system
version 2.5.0

		http://sourceforge.net/projects/gfarm/

This release supports master-slave synchronous and asynchronous
replicated metadata servers for immediate failover of a metadata
server and disaster recovery.  Synchronous replication ensures to
transfer metadata updates to slave servers, which enables immediate
metadata server failover without any loss of metadata updates.
Asynchronous replication does not ensure it, but it is used for
disaster recovery to set up slave metadata servers in distant
locations.

To enable replicated metadata servers, execute config-gfarm-update
with the -r option.

	% config-gfarm-update -r

When enabling the replicated metadata servers, metadata updates will
be written to a journal file.  The journal directory can be specified
by the -j option.  We recommend to use a device having a NVRAM cache
to append small data efficiently.  For details of the configuration,
see user's manual in html

http://datafarm.apgrid.org/software/gfarm_v2/html/en/user/index.html

This release also includes many updates and some bug fixes.  We
strongly recommend to upgrade to this version.

Release note for Gfarm 2.5.0
============================

[2011.8.5]

New Feature
* synchronous and asynchronous metadata replication support

New command
* gfmdhost - manages replicated metadata servers
* gfjournal - displays metadata journal data

New configuration directive
* metadb_server_list to specify replicated metadata servers
* metadb_replication to enable the replicated metadata feature
* synchronous_replication_timeout to speciy the timeout for
  synchronous metadata replication 
* synchronous_journaling to disable to flush the journal data in each
  metadata transaction
* metadb_journal_dir and metadb_journal_max_size to specify the
  journal directory and the maximum file size, respectively
* network_receive_timeout to specify the timeout of packet reception.
  This timeout is for failover of reading a file replica against the
  gfsd failure
* client_file_bufsize to specify the file buffer size in Gfarm client
  library.  Default is 1048568 bytes.  It should be less than 1048568
  not for deterioration of remote access performance for version 2.5.0
  or earlier.
* log_auth_verbose to display verbose authentication log in GSI.

Documentation
* metadata replication tutorial
* manual page - gfmdhost(1)
* install document for debian

Updated feature
* failover during reading files against the gfsd failure
* config-gfarm, config-gfarm-update - -r option to support replicated
  metadata servers, and -j option to specify a journal directory
* upgrading to a master gfmd by sinding SIGUSR1 signal to a slave gfmd
* initialize GSI environment by sending SIGHUP signal to a gfmd
* Globus debian package support

Bug fix
* GSI authorization fails when CA or CRL expires [sf.net trac #235]

---
Osamu Tatebe
Department of Computer Science, University of Tsukuba
1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 3058577 Japan