Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!apollo!heinzl_c@apollo.UUCP
From: heinzl_c@apollo.UUCP (Carl Heinzl - Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, MA)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: Apollo's NFS !!
Message-ID: <3c9567ba.d858@apollo.uucp>
Date: 10 Jun 88 21:47:00 GMT
References: <3c80c931.4653@apollo.uucp> <292@sdrc.UUCP>
Sender: heinzl_c@apollo.uucp
Lines: 34


In an earlier article Rob Gabbard states:
>   Apollo's implementation is a true one but useful only for 
>ascii-based i/o activities (copying, editing, etc.)  Unlike every other
>NFS implementation I've seen, Apollo's compilers can not write to an NFS
>disk and you can not execute binaries that reside on an NFS disk because of
>the file typing issues.

The reason that you cannot execute binaries on an NFS partition is that the
loader maps the binary into the address space of the process and these os
calls can not be executed on files that live across nfs partitions, after all
a remote file system will (unless it's an Apollo) have no knowledge of
ms_$ calls.  And, if you have several Apollo's, then there's no reason to
not have them joined by a DOMAIN ring with appropraite gateways into the
rest of your environment.  You can certainly copy the file, execute it and delete 
it afterwards, after all a standard loader reads the executable (just like a copy 
would) and runs it from there.  Don't forget exactly what we're discussing 
here either.  Do you actually want to try and run a binary on an Apollo that 
lives on a SUN, sorry - it just won't work.  Try running a VAX binary on your 
SUN and see what results you get there.  

>
>   I feel DOMAIN is a much better remote file system implementation than NFS
>but it's not very heterogeneous.  Apollo needs to address this NFS problem.

Now then, in light of the discussion above, exactly what *NFS* problem are you
talking about?

My feeling is that the NFS at Apollo is a VERY good implementation, now perhaps other
groups at Apollo need to work at making things work better in a heterogeneous
environment.  

Carl Heinzl WA3UEN   ---   heinzl_c@apollo.UUCP
(617) 256-6600 x7153