Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 12:14:58 MDT From: terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert) To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: peter@haywire.dialix.com, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Making a FreeBSD NFS server Message-ID: <9508211814.AA26143@cs.weber.edu> In-Reply-To: <11064.809015030@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Aug 21, 95 07:23:50 am
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> There are better ways of doing this, BTW.. A company I used to work > for (Periphere Computer Systeme, GmbH) had something they called > MUNIX/NET which did all of the above and at very reasonable speeds. > Even then, many people praised MUNIX/NET as a superior solution to the > whole file sharing problem, even if it did require kernel modification > on both the server and client ends. It basically used the "superroot" > model for addressing other machines (/../machine/file) and you could > talk to everything from files to tape drives remotely - something you > can't do with NFS. Since you could also traverse mount points > successfully on the local machine, you got around that particular > foible of NFS as well. I'd prefer OpenNet's POSIX-allowed '//' semantics to a "superroot" if we are voting, which we aren't. 8-). There is actually a lot to be said for *avoiding* a "superroot" or really any type of unified namespace. The main issue is that of mobile computining. At least, if there is a "superroot", it's best that the mappings be transitory and not state-ful. This allows for mobile computing and replication. For instance, installing WordPerfect to //WordPerfect and then using whatever WordPerfect export that happens to be floating around at my current location, independent of me being at an East coast or West coast office. Or replicating an install onto local media (permanently consuming a license for my box) and using it on a plane. The "best of both worlds" is actually multiple mountable "roots", those with a much larger namespace than the DOS 26 drive letter namespace. Terry Lambert terry@cs.weber.edu --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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