Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!uhnix1!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386 Subject: Re: RFS vs. NFS Message-ID: Date: 22 Aug 90 21:11:24 GMT References: <797@hades.ausonics.oz.au> <1940@cybaswan.UUCP> <:4C5FLA@xds13.ferranti.com> <1990Aug21.183615.8315@ico.isc.com> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 38 In article <1990Aug21.183615.8315@ico.isc.com> rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes: > peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) mentions: > > For a third choice, Intel's OpenNET software... > > ...Instead a super-root, "//", is created. To access > > files on a remote system, you access "//sysname/usr/bin..."... > Ugh! This isn't the first time I've seen this trick, but it's still a bad > idea. I wish all the clever developers who decided, "Yeah, we can just use > a double / for that!" had been experienced with UNIX before they inflicted > their bright ideas on us. Using // as magic *breaks* things. Historically, > extra /'s are ignored in file names. People use this fact. In practice, however, it breaks very few things. HDB UUCP is about the only one I can think of, and people who let folks UUCP at random into their entire network are just asking for trouble. More importantly, this has become a common usage and is explicitly blessed by P1003. I more or less agree that there are better choices: I like Futurenet's "/../machine-name" super-root syntax. But in practice it works. You really do need to use a name that can't be confused with an actual file name if you want to avoid the remote-mount business, and "//" or "/../" certainly serve that purpose. Either of them can confuse a sufficiently "smart" program that "knows" that "//" and "/../" are really "root". > To play in a subtree, you set ROOT=/usr/myhome/playpen or some such. When > you're ready to get serious, you set ROOT=/ which gives you FILE= > //usr/bletch/gargle. Which works just fine. OpenNET allows that unless you're sufficiently daft to have a system on your network named "usr". > (Don't bother telling me of the various ways to avoid the problem; I know. There isn't a problem. > Nor preach to me about standards; I'm talking about existing practice:-) Me too. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com