Global File System

From Free net encyclopedia

The Global File System (GFS) is a shared storage file system available for Linux computer clusters.

GFS is different than distributed file systems like AFS, Coda, or InterMezzo because it requires all nodes to have direct concurrent access to the same shared block storage.

GFS has no disconnected operating mode, and no client or server roles. All nodes in a GFS cluster are peers.

Fibre Channel, iSCSI, or AoE devices are often used for GFS shared storage. GFS depends on a distributed lock manager like GULM or GDLM.


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History

GFS originally developed as a part of a thesis project at the University of Minnesota. At some point it made its way to Sistina Software, where it lived for a time as an open source project. Sometime in 2001 Sistina made the choice to make GFS a commercial product -- not under an open source license. OpenGFS forked from the last public release of GFS.

In December 2003 Red Hat purchased Sistina. In late June 2004, Red Hat released GFS and many cluster infrastructure pieces under the GPL. Red Hat's current goal for the project (aside from the normal bug fixing and stabilization) envisages inclusion in the mainline Linux kernel. GFS now forms part of the Fedora Core 4 distribution and can be purchased as a commercial product on top of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

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See also

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External links

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Background

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Documentation

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Related projects

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