Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!decvax!eagle_snax!hinode!geoff
From: geoff@hinode.east.sun.com (Geoff Arnold)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.nfs
Subject: Re: PC NFS
Keywords: Integration of PCs and SUNs
Message-ID: <577@eagle_snax.UUCP>
Date: 25 May 89 20:10:49 GMT
References: <17676@vrdxhq.verdix.com>
Sender: news@eagle_snax.UUCP
Reply-To: geoff@hinode.UUCP (Geoff Arnold)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Billerica MA
Lines: 42

In an article which got dropped on the way to my system but which
Carl Smith forwarded to me, Alastair Milne (milne@ICS.UCI.EDU) writes:

}>Has anyone out there had any experience with the use of PC NFS which allows
}>DOS based PCs to use a SUN as a file server.  Good and bad experiences 
}>would be appreciated.
}
}   I didn't think there was any other way to use it!  My understanding of
}   PC-NFS is that it requires a UNIX-based host to be on the same net,
}   providing all server capacities (not just file) for all the PC's on the
}   net, as none of the PC's can be a server.
}
While it is true that the vast majority of NFS servers are UNIX-based,
let's give credit to the brave souls who have written servers for
VMS. VM, MVS and many other OS's - including DOS. PC-NFS (and any
other NFS client worthy of the name) will interoperate with all of
these, and has done so at Connectathons each year since '86.

}   I have only 2 complaints about PC-NFS so far:
}   - can't get broadcasts to the PC's from either server or other PC's.
}     would be very useful for downtime alerts.

What protocol would you suggest we talk? We don't really want to fill up
memory with TCP-based TSR's. One suggestion (if you're good at DOS
applications) would be to designate a particular file on an NFS drive
as a bulletin board, and write a little TSR that periodically
stat'd the file and if it had changed displayed the contents in
a pop-up window. If someone writes one and puts it on the net, we'd
all be able to use it.

}   - neighbouring PC's are still completely invisible to each other.
}     There is no way, for instance, for the XT with its 10MB hard disc to
}     share hard discs with one or more of the Tandy's, which each have 70MB
}     hard discs.

Check out the announcements in earlier comp.protocols.nfs postings
concerning SOS, a DOS NFS server written by See-Mong Tan at LBL.
You can FTP it from lbl-csam.arpa in /pub/sos.tar.Z.
Geoff Arnold,                              Internet: garnold@sun.com
Manager, PC-NFS Engineering                UUCP: ....!sun!garnold
PCDS Group, Sun Microsystems Inc.
"A disclaimer? Sure, at that price you can have half a dozen of 'em."