Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 13:36:30 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org> To: Kris Kennaway <kris@obsecurity.org> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.org, fs@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: httpfs Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1010310133423.86098G-100000@fledge.watson.org> In-Reply-To: <20010310031515.A8998@mollari.cthul.hu>
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I need not remind you that file systems front-ending onto random protocols are a bad idea for a huge number of reasons :-). That said, you might take a look at Intermezzo, which someone has already refered to indirectly in response to your e-mail -- Intermezzo is a file system for Linux (based on Coda) that allows perl programs to provide the back-end for a file system. I assume this is done in the style of AFS/Arla/Coda by having a small kernel module that up-calls to userland using a /dev/whatever entry, and then a userland program that satisfies the requests in some or another way. If you're really interested in implementing yet-another-nasty-file-system-abomination, take a look at Arla and rip out the AFS bits and replace them with HTTP bits :-). Robert N M Watson FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Project robert@fledge.watson.org NAI Labs, Safeport Network Services On Sat, 10 Mar 2001, Kris Kennaway wrote: > A few of us were talking on IRC tonight about how cool it would be to > have an httpfs filesystem -- then it occurred to me we almost have > this already, in the form of the (under-utilised) portalfs. Portalfs > works by handing off everything to a userland daemon which handles the > actual transaction request, so you could easily imagine extending it > to provide an http method similar to the tcp method it currently has > for initiating tcp connections. > > One could probably make this more generic and finish implementing the > undocumented 'exec' method (which currently exists as a stub): this > would run an administrator-specified command (i.e. fixed in > /etc/portal.conf) and pipe the output back to the user. > > A fully navigable httpfs (e.g. one you can ls and cd around in) is > more work and probably requires a full stacking layer, but this would > still be pretty cool. > > Is anyone feeling inspired to implement this? :-) > > Kris > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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