Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!emory!ra!Ra.MsState.Edu!fwp1 From: fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals Subject: Re: (was slashes, now NFS devices) Message-ID: Date: 7 Mar 91 00:35:05 GMT References: <15236@smoke.brl.mil> <123382@uunet.UU.NET> <1991Feb22.141910.17013@decuac.dec.com> <14363@ulysses.att.com> Sender: usenet@ra.MsState.Edu Organization: Computing Center, Mississippi State University Lines: 40 Nntp-Posting-Host: ra.msstate.edu In-reply-to: peter@ficc.ferranti.com's message of 6 Mar 91 14:52:21 GMT : On 6 Mar 91 14:52:21 GMT, peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) said: In article peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: > In article fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) writes: >> 1. NFS is designed to be operating system independant while RFS >> assumes UNIX on both ends of the connection. > OpenNET lets you do things like accessing a named pipe from DOS. If > anything operating system independence would seem to imply that file > semantics should be interpreted in the server. Nope. The date in a /dev file is just that...data. If the client is a UNIX box with the sense to interpret that data as a "device pointer" (for want of a better term) then they get to use it. Thats just what a diskless workstation does. If the client doesn't know how to interpret that data then it doesn't interpret it...just like it doesn't interpret SPARC data as a program. I won't claim this is the way it must be done. I will claim though that it is a reasonable thing to do. >> 2. This is probably most important. NFS is stateless. > This is the killer. I think it would be reasonable to relax statelessness > for devices, though. If you are going to relax statelessness for devices then you might as well relax it for everything. In which case you might as well scrap NFS. The stateless philosophy, right or wrong, is ingrained into NFS. If you want remote device access I really think one of the other systems would be a better start. Frank -- Frank Peters Internet: fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu Bitnet: FWP1@MsState Phone: (601)325-2942 FAX: (601)325-8921