toddb@tekcrl.UUCP (Todd Brunhoff) (01/07/86)
I have posted to mod.sources complete software and documentation for installation, maintenance and adjustment of RFS, a public domain, kernel-resident distributed file system, written at Tektronix Computer Research Laboratories* by myself for partial fulfillment of the master's degree program at the University of Denver. It was designed to provide complete transparency with respect to file access and protections for all programs whether they use local or remote files and directories. It has been installed on VAX BSD 4.2 and 4.3 UNIX, Pyramid 4.2/5.0 UNIX, version 2.5, and on a Tektronix internal proprietary workstation, called Magnolia. The instructions are designed in a way that keeps all changes separate from your standard sources, in hope that it will encourage sites to try the installation. The version posted is release 2.0+ (plus bug fixes, easier installation with patch, etc.), for those of you that may have heard of it. I mention this also because I am told that plain old 2.0 will appear on the BSD 4.3 tape under contributed software from U of Colorado at Boulder. Before you ask, it is "stateful". It is completely implemented except for ioctl() and select(). This includes the file locking facility, flock(2), which has been discussed here recently. The raw speed of performing a read(2) or write(2) type of system call remotely is about 25% - 40% that of local speed. Typically, this tends to make programs run about 50% - 90% of normal speed, because most programs spend a majority of their time doing computing, or local I/O (like display to a terminal). This makes it roughly twice as fast as rcp. The bulk of the use it sees here in teklabs, is among 50 or so Magnolias, an 11/780 and an 11/750. Its applications here are largely - distributed program development - distributed libraries for local program development - news - Rand MH mail - distributed font files for troff - distributed man pages And just about any other application that enables us to move large amounts of data off of the workstations and onto the VAX. The nicest win is with distributed program development where you keep all the source for a project on the vax, and each user (having a Magnolia) uses the source via RFS. I am happy to answer questions and redistribute bug fixes. I hope you find this useful. Todd Brunhoff toddb%crl@tektronix.csnet decvax!tektronix!crl!toddb * RFS should not be confused with another completely different (but excellent) implementation from Tektronix available on the 6000 series workstation, called DFS, and done by a separate product group. The work on RFS was designed and written strictly by the author of this paper at about the same time as DFS, and draws none of its implementation details from DFS. RFS is public domain, while DFS is proprietary.