> > However, I think there's a need to take a few steps back... > > The requirements you list are things that seems to me to be: once > we > have decided that we want an NFS server in a zone, these are > important > things that should be true of the delivered product. > > But I'm not yet seeing clear reasons for *why* we want an NFS > server in > a zone. I'm certainly not saying that we don't want this, I just > want to > fully understand the need for it.
Consolidation. Imagine a datacenter with a lot of old systems some of which are NFS servers. Given that the current hardware is way faster than previous generations, it is desirable to move services from these small systems to a smaller number of large systems. Zones give you the opportunity to more or less do a 1:1 migration i.e. without much required change (no need to solve uid clashes etc. <insert all reasons why you would want Zones here>). The fact that the NFS server can not run in a zone precludes NFS services from being consolidated in such a fashion. > > > scrap projects. Probably the most common idea for having a zone NFS > > server is for Jumpstart or home directories. As things stand today, > > it's not doable. > > Right, but these things are easily done (of course) using a server > in > the global zone: what advantages do we gain by putting the server > in a > local zone? See above. Less change. Especially when the original NFS servers are owned and managed by different groups, consolidation of the NFS servers onto a single NFS server in the global zone would be cumbersome or even impossible. The reasons for that may be either technical such as namespace clashes or political. If the NFS server would run in a zone, these issues would not be an issue (excuse the ban pun). Menno
