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From: Peter da Silva <peter@bonkers.taronga.com>
Message-Id: <199507290133.UAA13750@bonkers.taronga.com>
Subject: What's in a name?
To: hackers@freebsd.org
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 1995 20:33:13 -0500 (CDT)
In-Reply-To: <199507290050.TAA12663@bonkers.taronga.com> from "Stephanie da Silva" at Jul 28, 95 07:50:35 pm
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> > I have to agree with Peter and Robert here.  It seems
> > to me to be awfully cool to do

> > 	# echo format > /dev/sd0/crtl

> > to format a disk (and the disk can even be remote)!

> Why when it opens the device does it not get the lookup values and result
> in opening the device on your machine instead of the remote machine?

Because when it hits a remote machine instead of doing what NFS does and
running namei() over the network (at one transaction per directory, ick!)
it hands the whole thing off to the remote machine and gets an open file
descriptor back, the way virtually every other network file system in the
world does it (OpenNET, for example, or Sprite).

(and before you worry about diskless machines, the root is always virtual,
 with /dev built up at boot by sequentially binding the devices you need)

> How do you prevent a MIME message from sending the device message?

Same way you prevent a MIME message from overwriting /bin/sh or .rhosts.