From: Kevan Carstensen Date: Mon, 24 May 2010 04:28:36 +0000 (-0700) Subject: Note that servers of happiness only applies to immutable files for the moment X-Git-Tag: trac-4500~19 X-Git-Url: https://git.rkrishnan.org/pf/content/%22news.html/%22doc.html/index.php?a=commitdiff_plain;h=a0a770a96ab1987e2b330743ea1299ab375bf1a9;p=tahoe-lafs%2Ftahoe-lafs.git Note that servers of happiness only applies to immutable files for the moment --- diff --git a/docs/architecture.txt b/docs/architecture.txt index aa0101d1..0451d4e9 100644 --- a/docs/architecture.txt +++ b/docs/architecture.txt @@ -195,17 +195,28 @@ that information to the share-to-server table. This lets us do less work for files which have been uploaded once before, while making sure we still wind up with as many shares as we desire. -If we are unable to place every share that we want, but we still managed to -place enough shares on enough servers to achieve a condition called "servers of -happiness" then we'll do the upload anyways. If we cannot achieve "servers of -happiness", the upload is declared a failure. +Before a file upload is called successful, it has to pass an upload health +check. For immutable files, we check to see that a condition called +'servers-of-happiness' is satisfied. When satisfied, 'servers-of-happiness' +assures us that enough pieces of the file are distributed across enough +servers on the grid to ensure that the availability of the file will not be +affected if a few of those servers later fail. For mutable files and +directories, we check to see that all of the encoded shares generated during +the upload process were successfully placed on the grid. This is a weaker +check than 'servers-of-happiness'; it does not consider any information about +how the encoded shares are placed on the grid, and cannot detect situations in +which all or a majority of the encoded shares generated during the upload +process reside on only one storage server. We hope to extend +'servers-of-happiness' to mutable files in a future release of Tahoe-LAFS. If, +at the end of the upload process, the appropriate upload health check fails, +the upload is considered a failure. The current defaults use k=3, servers_of_happiness=7, and N=10. N=10 means that we'll try to place 10 shares. k=3 means that we need any three shares to -recover the file. servers_of_happiness=7 means that we'll consider the upload -to be successful if we can place shares on enough servers that there are 7 -different servers, the correct functioning of any k of which guarantee the -availability of the file. +recover the file. servers_of_happiness=7 means that we'll consider an immutable +file upload to be successful if we can place shares on enough servers that +there are 7 different servers, the correct functioning of any k of which +guarantee the availability of the immutable file. N=10 and k=3 means there is a 3.3x expansion factor. On a small grid, you should set N about equal to the number of storage servers in your grid; on a diff --git a/docs/configuration.txt b/docs/configuration.txt index 00820112..398ba1d9 100644 --- a/docs/configuration.txt +++ b/docs/configuration.txt @@ -272,11 +272,14 @@ shares.happy = (int, optional) k <= happy <= N larger than 256, because of the 8-bit erasure-coding algorithm that Tahoe uses. - shares.happy allows you control over the distribution of your file. An upload - is only considered successful if shares are placed on at least 'shares.happy' - distinct servers, the correct functioning of at least k of which is sufficient - to guarantee the availability of the uploaded file. This value should not be - larger than the number of servers on your grid. + shares.happy allows you control over the distribution of your immutable file. + An upload is only considered successful if shares are placed on at least + 'shares.happy' distinct servers, the correct functioning of at least k of + which is sufficient to guarantee the availability of the uploaded file. This + value should not be larger than the number of servers on your grid. + + (Mutable files use a different share placement algorithm that does not + consider this parameter.) == Storage Server Configuration ==