From: Brian Warner Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 00:30:06 +0000 (-0700) Subject: add some USAGE notes to the release notes, capitalize section headers, some small... X-Git-Tag: tahoe_v0.1.0-0-UNSTABLE~35 X-Git-Url: https://git.rkrishnan.org/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=4acce66b0bbe19fdd88c4ad6abba9c38a40b039f;p=tahoe-lafs%2Ftahoe-lafs.git add some USAGE notes to the release notes, capitalize section headers, some small edits --- diff --git a/relnotes.txt b/relnotes.txt index 7f9e36cf..2ed9eb26 100644 --- a/relnotes.txt +++ b/relnotes.txt @@ -1,3 +1,4 @@ + Allmydata, Inc. [1], provider of the "Allmydata" consumer backup product, is pleased announce the first public release of "Tahoe", an open source decentralized storage mesh. @@ -9,26 +10,44 @@ but it is already implements a functional decentralized storage mesh and is useful for experimentation, prototyping, and extension. -Installation +INSTALLATION -This release of Tahoe is guaranteed to work only on Linux. It may actually +This release of Tahoe is only supposed to work on Linux. It might actually work on other platforms -- earlier development revisions have been used on Windows, Cygwin, Mac/Intel, and Mac/PPC -- but not all of the unit tests currently pass on all platforms (see "Hacking and Community", below), so -we're officially proclaiming that it works on Linux. +we're officially proclaiming that this release works on Linux and that we'll +get the other platforms working in the future. To install, download the tarball [2], untar it, cd into the resulting directory, and follow the directions in the README [3]. -Usage +USAGE + +Once installed, you will need to create a "client node" as described in the +README. You will instruct this client node to connect to a specific +"introducer node" by means of some config files in the client node's working +directory. To join a public mesh, copy in the .furl files for that mesh. To +create a private mesh, you will need to run your own introducer, and copy the +.furl files from there. + +Each client node runs a local webserver (enabled by writing the desired port +number into a file called 'webport'). The front page of this webserver shows +the node's status, including which introducer is being used and which other +nodes are connected. Links from the status page lead to others that give +access to a shared virtual filesystem, in which each directory is represented +by a separate page. Each directory page shows a list of the files available +there, with download links, and forms to upload new files. -XYZ Brian: please insert intro to UI +Other ways to access the filesystem are planned, as well as other structures +than the single globally-shared namespace implemented by this release: please +see the roadmap.txt for some rough details. -Hacking and Community +HACKING AND COMMUNITY -Please join the mailing list [4] and to discuss the ideas behind Tahoe and +Please join the mailing list [4] to discuss the ideas behind Tahoe and extensions of and uses of Tahoe. Patches that extend and improve Tahoe are gratefully accepted -- roadmap.txt [5] shows the next improvements that we plan to make. You can browse the revision control history, source code, and @@ -38,7 +57,7 @@ and the code coverage results [8] and percentage-covered graph [9], which show how much of the Tahoe source code is currently exercised the test suite. -Licence +LICENCE Tahoe is offered under the GNU General Public License (v2). It also comes with the added permission that, in the case that you are obligated to release @@ -46,7 +65,7 @@ a derived work under this licence (as per section 2.b of the GPLv2), you may delay the fulfillment of this obligation for up to 12 months. -Network Architecture +NETWORK ARCHITECTURE Each peer maintains a connection to each other peer. A single distinct server called an "introducer" is used to discover other peers with which to @@ -60,8 +79,8 @@ and sufficient to recover the file. To fetch a file, starting with the URI, a subset of shares is downloaded from peers, the file is reconstructed from the shares, and then decrypted. -A single distinct server called a "vdrive server" maintains a mapping from -pathnames/filenames to URIs. +A single distinct server called a "vdrive server" maintains a global share +mapping from pathnames/filenames to URIs. We are well aware of the limitations of decentralization and scalability inherent in this prototype. In particular, the completely-connected property @@ -73,7 +92,7 @@ correctness of the introduction server and the vdrive server. Also note that the choice of which servers to use is easily configured. -Software Architecture +SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE Tahoe is a "from the ground-up" rewrite, inspired by Allmydata's existing consumer backup service, written in Python.