TDFS r3

TDFS stands for "Trivially distributed file system", and is a proof-of-concept implementation of distributed file system as a ("stacked") layer above normal file systems. It uses the FUSE libraries and subsystem to implement this operation in userland.
NOTE:This is currently a proof-of-concept implementation, not ready for production use! I would appreciate any feedback about this project - if it works or if it doesnt work. Since Im doing this in my spare time, it will take a long time for me to catch all bugs alone; if you need to speed this project up, consider posting ind the forums and/or submitting patches. You can contact me either personally or, better, via the SourceForge forums for the project.
The goal of TDFS is to solve single-writer-multiple-readers distribution of file system data (also called single-master-multiple-slave). In this scenario all writes happen (or originate) on one computer, and are propagated to others. Read requests can go to either the master or the slaves, and are served locally. Read requests dont go over the network, so this system doesnt offer strict synchronization. Some usages for this scenario are:
- Hot backups - all data is immediately propagated to a backup machine
- Archival - data is read-mostly and it helps to make it available on large number of machines
- Load balancing - one machine generates the data (possibly from a database) but is not a web server. Other machines are web servers and serve their local copy of the data. This is also useful as a separation of privileges (DMZ-style).
For example: in a scenario with one master and two slaves, the data is stored three times, once on each machine.