Before I propose a project for NFS to start getting NFS servers working in zones, I'd like to find out the requirements. I've been going over internal mail threads in the NFS group and the two things that seem to stand in the way to getting NFS completely in zones are:
1) Staffing - this is not on our roadmaps. 2) Lack of requirements - we don't know what people want. I look at the first hurdle and see a golden opportunity for a real OpenSolaris project - since internal developers aren't scheduled to do this work, we can get external developers involved from the start of the project. Of course, the second hurdle really stops us from kicking off the project. I'll start the ball rolling by kicking in some thoughts that Spencer Shepler provided when I asked him about getting this project started: > One of the things we have been struggling with in deciding if and how to fund > a zonification of the NFS server is understanding exactly what people need/want. > One simple requirement seems to be that of server consolidation. That can > be handled generally with IP address/interface aliasing. But there are > obviously other reasons as well that someone may want a zoneification > of the NFS server. > > Are people trying to delegation administration? Configure a system > for testing or software deployment testing or... > > So my suggestion would be to start a thead of discussion about what the > requirements are that lead people to thinking of NFS server in a zone. > The point of this exercise is to understand if that is the only > or most appropriate answer? > > For example, we may be able to combine the admin delegation stuff > that has been talked about for ZFS to things like the shareadm > command and to the nfsd daemon. Is it more effective, easier, to > build a delegation of administration of the NFS services than > to require someone to create zones and hand over all of the administration > for those zones. Maybe it is better to have things in the zone since > there would be IP-identity confusion for a strict delegation method. We should define the requirements as a community and then get the project started in that community.
