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The palimpsest user interface in Fedora 12 works great for single-user machines and laptops, but it has some scalability issues on systems
The palimpsest user interface in Fedora 12 works great for single-user machines and laptops, but it has some scalability issues on systems with many disks and partitions. It also has no notion of enclosures, expanders and similar contraptions that you meet when dealing with external storage. These problems have been addresses with a new user interface in gnome-disk-utility 2.29. The user interface has been improved in several other aspects as well, such as friendlier representation of S.M.A.R.T. information, and a nice way to benchmark disk performance.  
with many disks and partitions. It also has no notion of enclosures, expanders and similar contraptions that you meet when dealing
with external storage. These problems have been addresses with a new user interface in gnome-disk-utility 2.29. The user interface
has been improved in several other aspects as well, such as friendlier representation of S.M.A.R.T. information, and a nice way
to benchmark disk performance.  


The device-mapper stack was not properly integrated with udev in time for F12. This integration has happened in now, so udisks and
The device-mapper stack was not properly integrated with udev in time for F12. This integration has happened in now, so udisks and palimpsest can support LVM and multipath devices.
palimpsest can support LVM and multipath devices.
 
Finally, David while doing this work, David found time to implement a simple remote access facility for udisks, which allows
a palimpsest application running on one machine to interact with the udisks daemon on another machine. The remote access
is tunneled over ssh, and is not enabled by default.


Finally, David while doing this work, David found time to implement a simple remote access facility for udisks, which allows a palimpsest application running on one machine to interact with the udisks daemon on another machine. The remote access is tunneled over ssh.


== Benefit to Fedora ==
== Benefit to Fedora ==

Revision as of 18:36, 12 January 2010

Udisks Improvements

Summary

Add support for LVM (and various other improvements) to the udisks and gnome-disk-utility stack


Owner


Current status

  • Targeted release: Fedora 13
  • Last updated: 2010-01-12
  • Percentage of completion: 50%

The new user interface has been included in gnome-disk-utility 2.29. The LVM and remote access support is about to land in rawhide. Support for multipath devices will come a little later.


Detailed Description

The palimpsest user interface in Fedora 12 works great for single-user machines and laptops, but it has some scalability issues on systems with many disks and partitions. It also has no notion of enclosures, expanders and similar contraptions that you meet when dealing with external storage. These problems have been addresses with a new user interface in gnome-disk-utility 2.29. The user interface has been improved in several other aspects as well, such as friendlier representation of S.M.A.R.T. information, and a nice way to benchmark disk performance.

The device-mapper stack was not properly integrated with udev in time for F12. This integration has happened in now, so udisks and palimpsest can support LVM and multipath devices.

Finally, David while doing this work, David found time to implement a simple remote access facility for udisks, which allows a palimpsest application running on one machine to interact with the udisks daemon on another machine. The remote access is tunneled over ssh.

Benefit to Fedora

Fedora gains a more uniform disk management solution that is well-integrated in the GNOME desktop. Considering that LVM is still enabled by default in new installations, having well-integrated LVM support in the desktop seems like a big benefit.


Scope

  • udev/device-mapper integration needs to happen (it already has)
  • new udisks and gnome-disk-utility releases with the added features need to happen


How To Test

TBD


User Experience

TBD: add screenshots of new user interface, explain how to enable remote access


Dependencies

None, beyond udev/device-mapper integration, which has already landed.


Contingency Plan

This feature is somewhat incremental. The new user interface has already landed. If LVM support is not ready in time, we can just ship with the new user interface. If LVM and remote access land, but multipath support is delayed beyond feature freeze, we can ship without multipath support.


Documentation

TBD


Release Notes

The udisks storage daemon supports LVM and multipath devices in Fedora 13. The palimpsest tool provides a graphical user interface to these features. It has also seen several other user interface improvements, and optionally allows remote access now.


Comments and Discussion