Parallel Virtual File System
The Parallel Virtual File System is a user-space parallel file system for use on clusters of PCs (and Beowulfs in particular). It provides transparent file striping across multiple machines and includes a loadable kernel module for use with existing binaries. TCP/IP is used for data transmission, and file data is stored on existing file systems on each machine.
| Tags | Filesystems |
|---|---|
| Licenses | GPL |
| Operating Systems | POSIX Linux |
| Implementation | C |
Recent releases
- 02 Jul 2008 23:14
Changes: Additional support for the latest Linux kernel versions. Improved performance for a number of metadata-intensive workloads, and improved support for multithreaded use of the system interfaces. A security layer has been implemented. This includes validation with credentials, conditional compilation for RSA, DSA, and no encryption, and private key loading and capability signatures. A deadlock bug has been fixed. file_aio_write_iovec has been implemented. There is code cleanup and minor bugfixes.
- 26 Mar 2008 12:41
Changes: Additional support for a number of high-performance networks, namely Myricom MX and Cray Portals. Improvements to the Infiniband networking layer, a new two-dimensional distribution for TCP networks, immutable file support, and better support for user-specified layout of data over storage objects. Linux kernel support has been extended to include 2.6.22 and 2.6.23.
- 28 Dec 2004 11:27
Changes: Ported to Linux 2.4.20. Checks for missing header files. Cleanup of structures and messages. Support for GCC 3.4.0 and PCG's C compiler. Support for 64-bit i86 architectures. Support for shared libraries. Extensive bugfixes to many components.
- 21 Nov 2001 16:58
Changes: Fixes in Linux VFS support to improve stability.
- 30 Jan 2001 06:13
Changes: Numerous bugfixes, and when combined with PVFS-kernel 0.9.0, PVFS file systems can be mounted on Linux 2.2 and 2.4 systems for transparent access.
- All comments
Recent commentsRe: Whoa! Future looks bright
> When someone hacks a "mount.pvfs" this
> will have more uses than just for PVM.
> This would be a good replacement for
> Storage Area Networks (SAN).
I known what you mean, it's really sounds cool, but for the sake of simplicity I think I'll stay with something like ChironFS (http://freshmeat.net/projects/chironfs/).
Re: Whoa! Future looks bright
> When someone hacks a "mount.pvfs" this
> will have more uses than just for PVM.
> This would be a good replacement for
> Storage Area Networks (SAN).
Got it :).
Whoa! Future looks bright
When someone hacks a "mount.pvfs" this will have more uses than just for PVM. This would be a good replacement for Storage Area Networks (SAN).
Imagine one or more linux frontends that load-balance TCP-sessions with RNAT/IP_ROUTE_MULTIPATH to a bunch of backends. The backends share vital data over PVFS.
Ie. one could build a load-balanced TCP/IP service with standard daemons, no need to buy or develop special SW.