Questions about Arla for Mac OS X Server and Mac OS X Client

[Alexandra Ellwood]

Having worked with Assar on Mac OS X (Server) support in Arla, I'll 
try to answer...

The Mac OS X Server port in the Arla source tree is somewhat working. 
Last I checked it compiles and you can load the kernel module and run 
it.  However, if you try anything remotely complicated, arlad will 
die and sometimes you get a kernel panic.  This is probably because 
Assar and I only implemented a small subset of the vfs ops used by 
Mac OS X Server.   I recommend looking at the nfs code in the Darwin 
source tree <http://publicsource.apple.com/projects/darwin/> as a 
reference.

Mac OS X Server and Mac OS X should really be considered separate 
ports.  Mac OS X Server uses a Mach 2.5 kernel with NeXT loadable 
kernel module support.  Mac OS X uses a Mach 3 kernel.  They have 
numerous differences including different locations of header files, 
different ways of building and loading kernel modules,  different 
POSIX support (ie: Mac OS X has pthreads and Mac OS X Server 
doesn't), etc.  Also, the number of differences is going to increase 
as time passes and Mac OS X becomes more like Mac OS and less like 
dressed up NeXTStep.

Unfortunately I haven't had any time to work on porting Arla to Mac 
OS X, and I don't see myself having time in the near future. 
However, if you have any questions about what I did, I would be happy 
to answer them.

ggg
--lxs
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Alexandra Ellwood                                               <lxs at mit.edu>
MIT Information Systems                               http://mit.edu/lxs/www/
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