Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ucsd!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!jack!nusdhub!rwhite
From: rwhite@nusdhub.UUCP (Robert C. White Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans
Subject: Re: NFS vs RFS
Message-ID: <929@nusdhub.UUCP>
Date: 26 Mar 88 02:00:31 GMT
References: <184@quick.COM>
Organization: National University, San Diego
Lines: 20

in article <184@quick.COM>, srg@quick.COM (Spencer Garrett) says:
> Another problem with RFS is that the control structures are passed
> around in native binary (or so say the AT&T training folks), so you
> can't mount filesystems on machines with different byte orders.

Having gotten out my magic book, I see that it is true that
the structures are passed around in binary.

I would like, however, to ask how Spencer suggests they be
passed around?  The network hardware and software is more than
equal to the task of swapping all the bytes around while it
is being processed.  All the structures are aligned "long"s
and/or character arays <one aray per structure MAX>.

Put nicely, a x386 machine and a 3B2  and a SPARC machine
may RFS freely. [I have seen the 386 and 3B2's do it, but
not the SPARC as that is T.B.A.]

i.e. you CAN mount filesystems on machines with different byte oreders.

Rob.