Requirements for Federated File Systems
RFC 5716

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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                        J. Lentini
Request for Comments: 5716                                   C. Everhart
Category: Informational                                           NetApp
ISSN: 2070-1721                                                D. Ellard
                                                        BBN Technologies
                                                               R. Tewari
                                                                 M. Naik
                                                             IBM Almaden
                                                            January 2010

                Requirements for Federated File Systems

Abstract

   This document describes and lists the functional requirements of a
   federated file system and defines related terms.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc5716.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Lentini, et al.               Informational                     [Page 1]
RFC 5716         Requirements for Federated File Systems    January 2010

   This document may contain material from IETF Documents or IETF
   Contributions published or made publicly available before November
   10, 2008.  The person(s) controlling the copyright in some of this
   material may not have granted the IETF Trust the right to allow
   modifications of such material outside the IETF Standards Process.
   Without obtaining an adequate license from the person(s) controlling
   the copyright in such materials, this document may not be modified
   outside the IETF Standards Process, and derivative works of it may
   not be created outside the IETF Standards Process, except to format
   it for publication as an RFC or to translate it into languages other
   than English.

Table of Contents

   1. Overview ........................................................3
      1.1. Requirements Language ......................................4
   2. Purpose .........................................................5
   3. Examples and Discussion .........................................5
      3.1. Create a Fileset and Its FSL(s) ............................5
           3.1.1. Creating a Fileset and an FSN .......................6
           3.1.2. Adding a Replica of a Fileset .......................6
      3.2. Junction Resolution ........................................7
      3.3. Junction Creation ..........................................9
   4. Glossary ........................................................9
   5. Proposed Requirements ..........................................11
      5.1. Basic Assumptions .........................................11
      5.2. Requirements ..............................................14
   6. Non-Requirements ...............................................20
   7. Security Considerations ........................................21
   8. References .....................................................22
      8.1. Normative References ......................................22
      8.2. Informative References ....................................23
   Appendix A.  Acknowledgments ......................................25

Lentini, et al.               Informational                     [Page 2]
RFC 5716         Requirements for Federated File Systems    January 2010

1.  Overview

   This document describes and lists the functional requirements of a
   federated file system and defines related terms.

   We do not describe the mechanisms that might be used to implement
   this functionality except in cases where specific mechanisms, in our
   opinion, follow inevitably from the requirements.  Our focus is on