Linux gets some lovin’
We try to keep close parity between all the platforms that Jungle Disk supports, both in terms of functionality and support. So far I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that, releasing new features and updates for all three platforms simultaneously. However, recently it’s become apparent that the Linux version of Jungle Disk was in need of some “TLC”. As with the current Mac and Windows versions of Jungle Disk, the Linux version requires an external WebDAV client to support filesystem mounting. In the case of Mac and Windows that client is built into the OS, however on Linux it’s provided by the 3rd party DavFS software. Installing, configuring, and troubleshooting DavFS has proven troublesome, and changes in the software have made it less reliable over time. Because of this, we’re accelerating our plans for native filesystem integration on Linux and will be including it in the next beta release later this week.
Native filesystem integration brings a significant improvement in performance.
Previously, all filesystem requests went through a chain that looked like:
Kernel -> FUSE -> DavFS -> WebDAV -> JungleDisk -> S3
Now, requests go directly from the Kernel FUSE module to Jungle Disk:
Kernel -> FUSE -> JungleDisk -> S3
In addition to improving performance and reliability, direct integration brings a host of new functionality including:
- Support for backing up symlinks, devices, fifos and other special files
- Preservation of modification times, file permissions, and ownership
- Direct mounting on boot from fstab
Linux is only about 10% of our user base, but we consider it a very important platform to support. It is a second platform for many of our Mac and Windows users, it’s used by many folks who recommend the software to their less technical friends, and beyond that we just like it. Don’t worry Mac and Windows users - your native filesystem integration will be coming along soon!
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Todd Vierling said,
December 19, 2007 @ 4:19 pm
Will the DAV interface remain around for systems where direct mounting of the filesystem is not feasible for privilege or other reasons, but where explicit clients (e.g. those as part of KDE) can continue to use it via DAV? Of course, the minimalist HTTP interface is useful as well….
Jungle Dave said,
December 19, 2007 @ 4:25 pm
Yes, the WebDAV/HTTP interface remains (although it is now optional in the command line version).
Jason Brooks said,
December 19, 2007 @ 4:54 pm
Great to hear!
Anders Thomsen said,
December 20, 2007 @ 8:44 am
Great news!
Will it be possible to use automatic backup from the command line version?
Todd Vierling said,
December 20, 2007 @ 10:03 am
Thanks for the reassurance on DAV.
WebDAV/HTTP (and my begging for HTTP-401 style authentication for those interfaces to prevent other local users from accessing them… hint hint [grin]) are critical to “portable” users of JD. I’ll certainly be using direct filesystem integration when it’s available on computers I own, but the “portable” form is often used on systems where permissions are rather limited, and mounting a FS is typically not allowed.
Tom Gleeson said,
December 20, 2007 @ 4:15 pm
Aggghhhh….
If only I had read this blog this morning!! I’ve just spent the best part of a day trying to get davfs2 working on an EC2 Fedora instance.
This is great news, before reading this I had decided that Jungle Disk was not for me (the whole DavFS2 stuff was too much like hard work), but now it’s back on the menu ….
Tom
Jungle Dave said,
December 20, 2007 @ 4:17 pm
@Tom - the good news is that most of the work you needed to do to get it running (setting up FUSE) carries over to the new version. The only unneeded step was installing DavFS2.
Tal Golan said,
January 22, 2008 @ 7:50 pm
Thank you for supporting Linux!
I have been a longtime user (and paying customer) and am thrilled for the native Linux filesystem support.
Back in the WebDAV only days I was able to get everything mounting properly via /etc/fstab, however, with the lastest release I am unable to get /etc/fstab working. Straight command line instantiation works great.
Here is the entry I have added in my /etc/fstab file…
jungledisk /mnt/jungledisk fuse noauto,config=/etc/jungledisk-settings.ini 0 0
The jungledisk binary is located in /usr/sbin, fuse is loaded and properly set to automatically re-load on boot.
Here’s what I get…
# mount /mnt/jungledisk
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on fuse,
missing codepage or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so
Any suggestions?
Thank you for any assistance.
Regards,
–Tal
Jungle Dave said,
January 22, 2008 @ 8:40 pm
@Tal - Please post to our Linux support forums (http://forum.jungledisk.com) and we’ll look into it for you.
John Pappas said,
February 11, 2008 @ 7:48 pm
Dave,
I just got back up to speed with JungleDisk and this is fantastic. When I started (before 1.46) it was a hassle to get my Linux boxes up to speed. Since I leap-frogged to 1.50c, the change is AMAZING! I only had minor issues getting my Linux boxes upgraded and my data sync’ed.
Again, this is a Fantastic product, and as soon as this round of initiatives on my plate are handled, I would like to address an Enterprise style (Managed Client) offering for all of my users to enable backup of their laptops, without me having to provide that amount of bandwidth/storage.
Thanks!
John Pappas
Mark Mathson said,
March 4, 2008 @ 1:34 am
Good choice to keep improving support for Linux!