Digital Wasabi

I've completed my first zfs + snappy build. Its up on github at  https://github.com/techsaint/zfs-snappy . I tried to test it on my Virtualbox instance, but it doesn't look like there is very good VDI support for zfs. It seems to freeze when i try to write to a file system. I tried with the non snappy version too, just in case I mucked up something, but the vanilla version also froze. Now that I have a compatible version, I will test it on actual hardware, instead of in a VM. This build actually has snappy baked into zfsonlinux using the snappy-c library I found. If this route works, I will look at using the snappy-c port in an illumos build. I have all the changes out on bitbucket, and I did spend a few months learning the opensolaris/illumos build files....

Just wanted to make a statement that the CLI tooling for building software in linux (and really any *nix) has changed dramatically. In my mind, configure and make were all black boxes and it was very very hard to actually effect them as an independent developer once they were baked. This is not the case anymore. I was able, with autoconf, automake, and m4 templates (and of course some C++ glue) to actually integrate two libraries (zfs and snappy-c) that know nothing about each other. This is a testament not just to the auto tooling, but the level of maturity of a lot of open source software out there. While make is still technically a black box (yes, make scripts are simple in concept, fine...but go look at Illumos makefiles and we'll talk...), it may be ok for make to stay in the shadows...like some x86 assembly that gets generated on the fly... I just might, after this zfsonlinux + snappy release, revisit illumos. But from what I recall of the original opensolaris d...

My ZFS/Snappy project was put on hold, because of technical issues and lack of understanding (and documentation) of how to integrate a library into an Illumos build. I may have found a compromise. The zfs on linux project has become a bit more mature. I may switch up and use linux to create a snappy proof of concept.   I understand linux build structure much more than open solaris build structure, and the things i dont understand are fairly well documented. Because zfsonlinux is on github , I'll most likely be using Github and forking the project.

Woo!. Seems everything compiles perfectly. I had to copy the snappy libraries into the closed binary section of the build. Also, i had to build a 64bit and 32bit version of snappy (a bit difficult). I ran into a libtool bug (yes, another road block) when trying to compile the 64bit version of snappy. Right now, I use iscsi with virtualbox. So its difficult to import that into a different VM product (most desktop VM products dont support iSCSI booting).. I think i will copy over my illumos-gate directory to a now OpenIndiana installation, using a virtualHD, instead of iscsi. Then i should be able to import it into VMware or VirtualPC...and avoid the virtualbox bug I am experiencing with the latest illumos build. https://bitbucket.org/techsaint/zfssnappy

I am currently trying to add the snappy compression into ZFS for fun. You can check out my code here:  https://bitbucket.org/techsaint/zfssnappy I've been working on this for a few months (started around august). I've had massive roadblocks every step of the way. The first was the oracle purchase of Sun. Because of the purchase, the Sun Compiler tool patches (which were needed for an illumos build) were removed from the public. It took a month or so for the community to post instructions on using GCC instead of the Sun Compiler. After that, there was slight bug in the illumos build configuration that didnt allow for working builds if your new build version was older than the whatever version of illumos you were on. See  https://www.illumos.org/issues/1118 Now this new bug, is a virtualbox bug, which just appeared out of no where. Here is the ticket:  https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9651 . Since I rebased with the latest illumos code (as per build instructions) I ...