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	id 0ypaNF-0006ig-00; Fri, 26 Jun 1998 16:25:13 +0100
Subject: Network File System
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Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 16:25:13 +0100 (BST)
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Hi,

Once again I hope this is the right list, it appears to be based on
where other posts of a similar nature have been posted.

I had a strange idea the other day:

There are, that I know of, no (free) decent Network Filesystems for Unix
that work as a Unix filesystem.  NFS looks like a Unix filesystem,
but has problems too innumerable to mention.

SMB is (despite the microsoft connections) is a reasonable network
filesystem, but doesn't appear to support the unix aspects all
that well, so no permissions, or owners.

However, UMSDOS (sorry Terry Lambert, who always seems to be the
one to reply to UMSDOS questions) copes with putting a Unix filesystem
on top of a DOS filesystem (which SMB supports just fine).

So, would it be possible to combine SMB and some SMB transparent
extension such that permissions and ownership could be added?
I don't think that long filenames would _need_ to be coped with
explicitely, although if any incarnation prior to win95 had SMB
it might be worthwhile... maybe.

Am I missing something and this is a bad idea?  Because it seems
to have a lot of merit.  You lose, in terms of speed, I suppose, but
you gain in terms of being able to use a network filesystem that is well
supported, but keeping the things that are needed by Unix.


As an aside/addendum, does anyone know of a decent network filesystem
that FreeBSD can support?  This would be helpful specifically to
me, since we run an almost exclusively freeBSD network here,
although my idea might be nice if ever we get a nice fileserver like
a Network Appliance box.

Thanks,

Julian
Unix Admin, Internet Vision


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