Hello, I'm wondering if anyone can shed some light on growing and/or shrinking arena files (i.e., disk partitions). With the growing popularity of logical volume management, vitrualization, etc., resizing partitions is becoming more and more common, and many file systems already have "resize" tools or options to grow/shrink file system structures according to changes in the size of the underlying device. I'm wondering what capacities (if any) venti has for dealing with inceases or decresases in the size of its arena files.
Yes, I know that the canonical way to add more storage to a venti server is to format and add an ADDITIONAL arena file with venti/fmtindex -a. But I'd like to know, specifically, if it's possible to grow/shrink an arena file without breaking anything. If an arena file is extended, will venti automatically make use of the extra space? Would the additional arenas need to be formatted? And, if so, how? If empty arenas at the end of an arena file are truncated (on an arena boundary, ideally), would venti continue to function properly, fill up the remaining space, and then continue on to the next arena file? Or, would venti crash and burn in a pile of flaming bits and bytes? Another way of stating this question might be to ask for information about the arena file format. Knowing the file format, I could deduce whether any inconsistency would be introduced by a change in file size. Yes, I read the venti paper, including its descripion of arena files and their contents. However, it is rather vague on such points, more like an academic lecture or advertisement than a technical specification. Is there a TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION for the arena file format? Getting my eyeballs on one would probably allow me to figure this all out, for myself. For that matter, any formal specifications for 9P2000 and the venti protocol would be very helpful, too (for other purposes). Any pointers (dereferenced or not :) would be greatly appeciated! -- +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | human <smi...@icebubble.org> PGP key ID: BC549F8B | |Fingerprint: 9329 DB4A 30F5 6EDA D2BA 3489 DAB7 555A BC54 9F8B| +---------------------------------------------------------------+
