Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!att!ulysses!ulysses.att.com!ekrell From: ekrell@ulysses.att.com (Eduardo Krell) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: (was slashes, now NFS devices) Message-ID: <14367@ulysses.att.com> Date: 24 Feb 91 19:30:59 GMT References: <15236@smoke.brl.mil> <123382@uunet.UU.NET> <1991Feb22.141910.17013@decuac.dec.com> <14363@ulysses.att.com> Sender: netnews@ulysses.att.com Organization: AT&T Bell Labs Lines: 41 In article fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) writes: >You ignore (or aren't aware of) two important differences between RFS >and NFS that make this impractical. No, I'm well aware of the difference between RFS and NFS. RFS is a distributed Unix filesystem and guarantees Unix semantics on remote files. > The concept of a file > system entry that points to a device by magic major and minor codes > is very OS specific. While that concept is by no means unique to > UNIX it is far from universal and implemented differently wherever > it is found. I don't see how this implies that the client should interpret the special file. What if the client is a PC running DOS? And to Unix users, NFS is not stateless. What is rpc.lockd used for? >No, I think special files must be treated like any binary data. If I >mount my sparc executables on a MIPS box those files are meaningless >data. Well, if you're cross compiling on the MIPS for the sparc, then they might not be meaningless. I agree with you that special files should be treated like any binary file, that is, opening that file on the client or the server should yield the same result. What happens when you read a binary file on the client? Do you get a different byte stream? >If I choose to write a UNIX device file interface emulator for >VMS or DOS I should be able to pass it the special file data for local >interpretation. I don't understand. What if the special file is associated with a device on the server like a tape or CD-ROM player or whatever? What good would it do for you to have a "device file interface emulator" on the client when the only way to access that device is through the device driver in the server? Eduardo Krell AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ UUCP: {att,decvax,ucbvax}!ulysses!ekrell Internet: ekrell@ulysses.att.com Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com