Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.nfs
Subject: Re: Yes, Virginia, you *can* have UNIX filenames containing '/'
Keywords: NFS / filenames pathnames
Message-ID: <444@auspex.UUCP>
Date: 12 Nov 88 07:09:57 GMT
References: <5945@fluke.COM>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 15

>This isn't really a bug so much as a consequence of the fact that the NFS
>spec isn't specific to UNIX semantics.  From the NFS point of view, such
>files should be allowed.

I'd call it a bug in the UNIX NFS server code as distributed by Sun;
it's serving up a UNIX file system, and file names (component names)
containing "/" are illegal under UNIX.  (In fact, I think it *did* call
it that, filing a bug report against it....) Since you can't "rm" such
files from UNIX, it's kind of impolite of the server to let them
through.

Such files should be allowed if the server is willing to allow them, but
servers aren't obliged to allow them (you could write an NFS server for
a file system that allowed only 26 files named "A" through "Z" if you
want).