Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!nuchat!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (peter da silva) Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals Subject: Re: (was slashes, now NFS devices) Message-ID: <75+9FI4@xds13.ferranti.com> Date: 11 Mar 91 23:51:54 GMT References: <15236@smoke.brl.mil> Organization: Ferranti International Controls Corporation Lines: 42 In article , fwp1@CC.MsState.Edu (Frank Peters) writes: > 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. But *what* is the data in the device file? You're basically saying it's simply the major and minor device numbers. I'm saying it's what you read from that device. > 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. This is a solution that makes sense for "diskless workstations". I have some question as to whether diskless workstations are a good idea in the first place, but a better solution would be to create a RAM-based file system that simply contained "/" and "/dev", the way the HP Integral did things. This way you get the diskless workstation without breaking remote file systems for device files. > I won't claim this is the way it must be done. I will claim though > that it is a reasonable thing to do. The question of whether it's "reasonable" is obviously answered by the fact that it works, and works well enough to satisfy people. The question I'm considering, though, is whether it's the best solution. > If you want remote device access I really think one of the other > systems would be a better start. Probably so. Unfortunately NFS is pretty firmly ingrained. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' peter@ferranti.com +1 713 274 5180. 'U` "Have you hugged your wolf today?"