Disconnected operation refers for the ability to disconnect from a networked filesystem and make changes to the files, and then have the changes replicated back to the server when you reconnect.

The results of my search for a network filesystem that supports disconnected operation:

I want a FS that supports DO so I can keep the same files on my laptop and my home computers and not have them get out of sync. Currently I'm using unison? file syncronizer which works well for the most part, but isn't as transparent as I'd like. I've also lost files when I forgot they were in a syncronized folder and wanted to delete the local copy.

So I started by looking at OpenAFS and Coda since they have support in the 2.6.7 kernel.

OpenAFS doesn't support disconnected operation (there may be partial support), it's on the wishlist, but that's about it. It looks like a good choice for a distributed filesystem otherwise.

Coda appeared to be dead at first glance, but lead me to find Intermezzo.

Intermezzo was started by a former developer of Coda as a simpler implementation of Coda, and did reach version 1.x.

In 2002 Intermezzo was abruptly abandoned in favor of Lustre which does not support DO, UGH, but DO is planned for version 2.0. Support for Intermezzo has been dropped from recent kernels (it was in 2.6.5).

Looking again at Coda it appears to have had a recent release (release was in April 2004: check the announcements mailing list for current info), and has packages for my current distributions of choice (Debian and Gentoo), so this looks like the way to go.

I've not been able to find any other filesystems besides Intermezzo and Coda that support DO. If there are any please update this page accordingly with at least just the name.

Finding what the current status of these projects is was a bit challenging. i hope this will help someone else.