Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!apple!motcsd!hpda!hpcupt1!hpisod2!decot
From: decot@hpisod2.HP.COM (Dave Decot)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Portable mknod ?? does it exist?
Message-ID: <10650062@hpisod2.HP.COM>
Date: 3 Aug 89 18:18:13 GMT
References: <178@cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu.edu>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 25

Apparently, the problem you encountered on the HP-UX system is a
limitation in Sun's NFS, which you were not using when you tested the
other systems.

Prior to NFS version 3.2, NFS did not permit FIFO files to be created
on remote NFS-mounted filesystems at all.  After NFS version 3.2, FIFO
files can be created remotely.  The HP-UX release you are using contains
a version of NFS prior to 3.2.

The next release of HP-UX (7.0) will contain a version of NFS compatible
with NFS 3.2 that will permit you to create FIFO files on NFS-mounted
file systems.

However, note that no version of NFS I know of permits you to actually use a
FIFO file to communicate to a process on another processor, since when
they are opened, the contents are stored locally.

This is yet another small UNIX feature one has to avoid when NFS might
be around because of the stateless operation of NFS.

DISCLAIMER: My opinions only.  I do not speak for HP (or Sun, for that matter).

Dave Decot
Hewlett-Packard Company
hpda!decot