Re: New task list items on savannah

[Marco Gerards]

Marcus Brinkmann <Marcus.Brinkmann@ruhr-uni-bochum.de> writes:

> On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 01:18:20AM +0200, Marco Gerards wrote:
> > I've included some descriptions I wrote with this mail, I've also
> > written a new task for fatfs. I just called this item "Fix writing
> > support", which includes many small tasks. Is it better to divide this
> > task in many small tasks? (I'll wait with adding this task/tasks
> > before I add this task on savannah).
> 
> I think that each of those you listed is independent of the others, so they
> should have their own task.

Ok.

> I am not going to comment on priorities and difficulties, I found it hard to
> judge this.  I think those are best left to the person assigned to do the
> task.  Fill them in with whatever your judgement on this is.

I will.

> Another way to find tasks is to grep the source for XXX and FIXME comments.

Ok.

> > Fix writing support
> > 
> > priority: 7
> > difficulty: 8
> > 
> > Writing support in fatfs does work a bit, but it is far from
> > perfect. Before it correctly works these things should be fixed:
> 
> If you have one task for each of these, they are differently difficult and
> prioritized.

Right.
  
[...]

> Another one:
> 
> Use the information in the superblock to find out how much disk space is
> used/free.  Update this information.

This is a bit more difficult. FAT32 has a separate block to store this
information. The information is not always correct. I will write a
todo item about this and about it's limitations (and how to avoid this).

>  
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > Write a utmp translator
> > 
> > priority: 4
> > difficulty: 5
> > 
> > Design the utmp interfaces and write a translator. Change all programs
> > that use utmp to use this translator.
> 
> I know you got this from the official task list, but I would only want to
> see it in Savannah if you can roughly describe what this translator and the
> interface should do.  Because the above is only going to raise more
> questions about it, questions which I couldn't answer (maybe Thomas or
> Roland can explain this task item).
> 
> In general, a task item should provide enough information to get people
> started.  It should be clear what needs to be done in which way.  If it only
> says what needs to be done without saying how (and the "how" is not
> obvious), then the task item is only of limited usefulness: It can serve the
> people who know how as a reminder, but that's it.

Ok.

[...]

> > priority: 5
> > difficulty: 5
> > 
> > Libnetfs should handle these options just like libdiskfs does. It
> > should be possible to get and change these options after the server
> > started using fsysopts.
> 
> > (libdiskfs)
> > Handle dead name notifications on execserver ports.
> 
> That's not at all important right now.  It's probably a somewhat obscure
> robustness issue.
> 
> > priority: 6
> > difficulty: 3
> > 
> > When the exec server dies it is impossibly to start a
> > program. libdiskfs should handle dead name notifications to find out
> > if the exec server died and alert the user.
> 
> You are sure that this is what it is about?  init already should do that.

I didn't know init can restart the exec server. What I know is when
the exec server dies it doesn't notice this and update the stored portname.

> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > Support multiple users per uid
> > 
> > priority: 5
> > difficulty: 5
> > 
> > It is only possible for one user per uid to log in. The uid is passed
> > to the password server instead of the username. The password
> > (password.defs) interfaces should be changed so it is possible to pass
> > the username to the password server.
> > 
> > The password server and libshouldbeinlibc should be changed to use the
> > interfaces and usernames instead of uids internally.
> > 
> > Also the utilities using the password interfaces should be updated so
> > they pass the username to the password server instead of the uid.
> 
> Note that this is an interface change.  We would like to have versioned
> libhurduser and libmachuser before that, a wholly different task ;)

Isn't adding an interface an option? It doesn't break anything and it
will make it easier to switch. (I'm asking because I'd like to see
this done :)).

>  
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > 
> > (ext2fs)
> > Maybe file_pager_write_page should be able to accurately reproduce holes
> > 
> > priority: 3
> > difficulty: 5
> > 
> > When a block that is a part of a file is filled with zeros it doesn't
> > have to be stored on disk. This is called a sparse file.
> > 
> > Just before a block of a file is written to disk file_pager_write_page
> > should check if that block is filled with zeros. It should allocate a
> 
> should _not_ allocate

whoops

> > block on disk but just mark it as sparse instead. If a block was
> > already allocated on disk it should be freed.

Do you agree with this? (may I add this?)

About the comments I didn't  reply about, I will follow your advice.

Thanks,
Marco