Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!ist!uel!andrew
From: andrew@uel.uel.co.uk (Andrew Josey)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: UNIX System V Release n
Summary: RFS conforms to Sun's XDR
Keywords: UNIX System V Release 4.0 Multics complexity kludge
Message-ID: <922@uel.uel.co.uk>
Date: 14 Dec 88 16:00:29 GMT
References: <422@ubbpc.UUCP> <9089@smoke.BRL.MIL> <417@maxim.ERBE.SE>
Organization: AT&T Unix Europe, London, UK
Lines: 25

In article <417@maxim.ERBE.SE>, prc@ERBE.SE (Robert Claeson) writes:
> As far as I know, RFS does not use something like XDR. Instead, data is
> sent in the particular machine byte order on the network.

To paraphrase the System V Porting Rules (for SVR3):

In order for RFS to share data and files between heterogeneous machines
which have different byte ordering,data alignment etc, data is converted
to a canonical format before sending out to the network. The canonical
formats used in RFS conform to Sun's External Data Representation (XDR).

The decision on whether to use canonical formats is negotiated at
virtual circuit set-up time.

>Furthermore, RFS is closely tied to the System V 0.5, 1 and 2K block file
>systems and cannot be used on BSD file systems. Not even in SVR4 (at least,
> that's how I interpreted it). I might be wrong.

RFS will work on both s5 filesystems and the ufs filesystem type (an 
implementation of the BSD "fast filesystem") in SVR4.0.
-- 
 Andrew Josey,	AT&T Unix Europe, a Division of AT&T (UK) Ltd.
 International House, Ealing Broadway, London W5 5DB, England, UK
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