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From: guy@gorodish.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Newcastle Connection on Pyramid 98X
Message-ID: <16184@sun.uucp>
Date: Sun, 5-Apr-87 07:10:27 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.16184
Posted: Sun Apr  5 07:10:27 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 5-Apr-87 22:37:24 EST
References: <248@rlvd.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: guy@sun.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 40
Xref: utgpu comp.unix.wizards:1678 comp.unix.questions:1629

>   The Pyramid does not function correctly as an NC server because it has 
>a nonstandard directory format which the NC cannot seem to make any sense 
>out of;

That depends on your definition of "nonstandard".  Yes, it's
different from the directory format used by V6, V7, 4.1BSD, S3, and
S5.  However, it is used by such minor players in the computer
industry as DEC (in Ultrix-32) and HP (in some versions of HP-UX), as
well as a number of other companies such as Sequent, Gould, Celerity,
and a certain Mountain View-based workstation maker....

4.2BSD replaced the V7 file system with a new one; one thing that was
changed was the directory entry format.  The new directory format
supports file names up to 255 characters long.

Note that no published UNIX-derived standard specifies the directory
format.  Both the IEEE POSIX standard, and Volume 3 of the System V
Interface Definition, specify that directories should be read using
routines very similar to the routines added in 4.2BSD for reading
directories.  The directory entry format in those standards is
actually slightly closer to the 4.2BSD format than to the V7 format;
strings are guaranteed to be null-terminated in those standards and
in the 4.2BSD directory format, but not in V7.

>   Any advice, tips etc. would be welcome (does anyone, anywhere have the
>Newcastle Connection working on a Pyramid???).

Or a VAX running Ultrix-32, or a Sequent, or a Celerity, or a Sun, 
or a Gould, or....

If the Newcastle Connection passes V7-flavored directory entries over
the wire, you have a problem, as this would restrict file names to 14
characters.  If it has a different format, somebody may have built a
version of the directory-reading code to handle 4.2BSD directories.

Then again, the Pyramid (as well as a number of the other machines
listed above, and a number of machines running S5, and some machines
not even running UNIX) supports NFS as well.  You might be able to
use NFS here if you can get it for all the machines you're interested
in.