Tanna: The people of Earth are proving resistant to Plan 9. Eros: Our namespace technology is superior. Release the Giant ANTS!
Hello 9fans. Today I am making the official announcement of ANTS - Advanced Namespace Tools for Plan 9 from Bell Labs. This is a collection of software all focused on a single theme: how to extend the capabilities and uses of Plan 9 namespaces. ANTS is written for the main Bell Labs distribution and is intended to be 100% compatible with existing Bell Labs installations. The goal is to provide powerful new capabilities to Plan 9 installs with full compatibility with the existing system and no reconfiguration required. ANTS features: 9pcram kernel with more flexible and reliable bootup including full interactive control if desired Ability to easily launch multiple independent namespaces on a single machine, slightly similar to BSD jails but not intended for security High level semantics for rewriting process namespace via the /proc file, enabling cpns of namespace between processes, even those on remote machines Instant rerooting into any available namespace while maintaining use of the the gui Run Bell Labs Plan 9 and 9front userland at the same time on the same machine with 9pcram kernel Automated replication of data between venti archives Clone entire root filesystems between machines with one command Create persistent shells and multiplexed i/o pipes to bring access to shells in all namespaces into the main file namespace Access shells and datastreams on any machine directly from rio Comprehensive manpages Tutorials, preinstalled vm images and a full paper explaining the ideas and implementation The ANTS software itself is located at ants.9gridchan.org and is accessible via 9p, http, and ftp. Ready to use VM images suitable for booting in Qemu are linked from the base 9gridchan.org site (http only) and tutorials and other information can be found at http://antfarm.9gridchan.org/Overview. The current draft of the paper can be found at http://ants.9gridchan.org/doc/ants.ps. MICROFAQ: Ants is not a new fork or distribution. It is software for Plan 9 from Bell Labs. Ants does have tools to integrate with 9front. Helping the different varieties of Plan 9 work together easily is one of the goals. Ants has only been tested on x86 pcs. It is a goal to support all arches and boot methods but the current software is only configured for x86. There are many components of the ANTS software. Some can be used independently. Even if you aren't interested in the whole package, there may be pieces which you might find useful on their own. Many people offered technical advice and help. Many published papers and books were invaluable guides and sources of ideas. No one else has any responsibility for any bugs or errors, but the fact that this software exists and runs would have been impossible without the help of too many people and authors to list here. Thanks to everyone who works and has worked with Plan 9 and I hope the ANTS software will provide you with useful tools. -Ben Kidwell "mycroftiv"
