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Declining to use Coda on Debian

After my dismal failure at Pohmelfs, I shopped for alternative distributed files systems. I can’t tell if CODA is abandoned or not, but I’ll give it a try.

  1. Build into kernel 2.6.33, no problems.
  2. Debian has let their user mode utilities rot away.
  3. CMU has prebuilt .debs, including for Squeeze. That looks good.
  4. Add the CMU apt sources, looks like this now… # cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/coda.list deb http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/debian lenny/
  5. aptitude update ; aptitude install coda-server, scary text about unsigned packages follows, but it is OK.
  6. Configure server with vice-setup
  7. Similar for the client machines, except aptitude install coda-client… ends with 00:35:02 Venus starting… 00:35:02 /coda now mounted
  8. Test client with CMU’s server: # cfs lv /coda/testserver.coda.cs.cmu.edu Status of volume 7f000000 (2130706432) named “/” Volume type is ReadWrite Looks good. I can read the sample documents.
  9. Test client with my server: Much hanging and server not founding. Most likely related to my “hostname” being an internal address unreachable by the client. There is a spot in the /etc/coda/*.conf file and in one in the /vice directory, but it still attempts to use the unreachable address and no hints in vice-setup on how to force an address.
  10. I temporarily change my hostname to the external interface address. No luck. The client does a pile of DNS lookups for SRV records for my host with _codasrv._udp prepended, then does one for a regular A record. Gets my address, but never tries to contact.
  11. Reboot client. Success! Now we can connect. Something evil must have been cached.
  12. Many failures to authenticate with clog until I realize that the example I’m working from only has an account of admin because that is what they gave vice-setup. Use the account I gave with the password “changeme” and I’m in.
  13. Find cpasswd, change that password.
  14. Try to make myself a user account. au -h MYHOST nu, coda is a pretty hostile system. It echoes my new password in the clear even though it knows how not to, then fails with AuthNameToId() --> AUTH_FAILED
  15. Find pdbtool. Use it to make my account from the server side, but I can’t see how to set the password. Go back and try au from a client, and now I can set my password.
  16. Notice I have no group. Use pdbtool to make a group with my name, program explodes with an assert failure. That’s going to be a problem.
  17. Unpack a linux kernel on the client. It flew until arch/arm, not it is crawling along at about 1 file per second. No load on server, no load on client, no load on network, just glacial progress.
  18. Abandon Code!

Coda is badly documented, user hostile, and not robust.

I do not trust it.