Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!jik From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals Subject: Re: (was slashes, now NFS devices) Message-ID: <1991Mar11.001244.28792@athena.mit.edu> Date: 11 Mar 91 00:12:44 GMT References: <1991Mar9.170841.4042@panix.uucp> Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system) Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 19 In article <1991Mar9.170841.4042@panix.uucp>, zink@panix.uucp (David Zink) writes: |> P.S. If NFS need hold no state on the server, what is a .nfsXXX file? |> "I know, I know, it's not part of the protocol." The server has no idea that the .nfsXXX file represents a file that was unlinked while open on a client. The client kernel on the machine that did the unlinking is the only thing that knows that. So it's the client kernel that contains the state in this case, not the server. As far as the server is concerned, the .nfsXXX is no more special than any other file. I'm not siding one way or the other in this discussion, I'm just pointing out that (as far as I can tell) the whole .nfsXXX kludge does not show any keeping of state per se on the NFS server. -- Jonathan Kamens USnail: MIT Project Athena 11 Ashford Terrace jik@Athena.MIT.EDU Allston, MA 02134 Office: 617-253-8085 Home: 617-782-0710