harv@ksuvax1.cis.ksu.edu (Harvard Townsend) (09/20/88)
I have seen the Network File System (NFS) demonstrated on a Mac the last
two years at Uniforum, but have yet to hear of its availability. Last
February in Dallas at Uniforum, it was shown in Excelan's booth (parent
company of Kinetics, I believe). The work was done at U. of Michigan for
Apple, I believe. This allows mounting of file systems from an NFS server
through a Kinetics Localtalk-Ethernet gateway. This would be very useful
for us, so I would appreciate hearing from anyone who knows of its status.
I normally do not read this news group, so please send responses directly
to me. Thanks.
--
Harvard Townsend, Systems Manager
CIS Dept., Kansas State University
Internet: harv@harris.cis.ksu.edu BITNET: harv@ksuvax1.bitnet
UUCP: {pyramid,ucsd}!ncr-sd!ncrwic!ksuvax1!harvtim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) (09/26/88)
TOPS is supposedly converting over to NFS, but don't hold your breath. TOPS is owned by Sun, and there's too much religious fervor in Sun about NFS to make the changes needed for microcomputers. I wish I could tell some of the stories about negotiations on NFS changes, but I don't want to appear mean-spirited toward my former employer. I will say that being ordered to drop what I was doing and port RPC (a profoundly bad protocol, the underlying layer of NFS) to the Mac had a great deal to do with my decision to leave TOPS this summer. Let's not discuss the merits of RPC; I have grown tired of bullyragging dogmatists who won't see that 50-75K for a transport protocol is too much for microcomputers, or that a standard protocol needs complete documentation outside the source code, or that atrillion dispatched (not library) function calls annihilate performance. Let's just say the suitability of NFS/RPC for non-UNIX operating systems was proclaimed by Sun engineers before they had actually made it work on any other systems, and that they still stick to it even though every attempt to port NFS to anything but MS-DOS has given very disappointing results. TOPS developed the TOPS protocol on two systems at once, and successfully ported it to two other systems, and they are being foolish to discard that advantage over NFS. Enough said. -- Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim "Strong men tremble when they hear it. They've got cause enough to fear it; It's even blacker than they smear it! No one mentions -- my name." - Bill Sykes, "Oliver"
dennisg@pwcs.StPaul.GOV (Dennis Grittner) (09/28/88)
Just a little followup: Cayman with their Gatorbox nay have the NFS answer once they get the software a little more robust. The construct they are using is mapping NFS to Appleshare. It works somewhat on Sun and needs some work to become useable in all cases. I am hopeful that they will continue to work hard and get it REALLY working good - but the "proof will be in the pudding". We are currently experimenting with one talking to a Sun and a Pyramid. While the Gatorbox works better with the Sun ( my understanding was this was the development system ) it sometimes works with the Pyramid. The only truly irritating thing is when it has a major problem it just DIES ( infinite loop anyone ?? ) and we have to do hard reboots. I think ( again ) that they are darned close and they are working on solving the problems. Jay Towslee at Pyramid is trying to cooperate with them to get better access to a Pyramid - as well. BTW Jay is a good dude and Mac hacker type person with a soul - so... Anyhow I'm damned hopeful that the Gatorbox MIGHT be an NFS answer for the Mac... and then is they get SLIP implemented and the e-mail services/gateway done...... -- Dennis Grittner City of Saint Paul, Minnesota (612) 298-4402 Room 700, 25 W. 4th St. 55102 "Let's just put Ollie, Ronnie, and George in jail!"
tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney) (09/30/88)
In article <6007@pwcs.StPaul.GOV> dennisg@pwcs.StPaul.GOV (Dennis Grittner) writes: >Cayman with their Gatorbox nay have the NFS answer once they get >the software a little more robust. >The construct they are using is mapping NFS to Appleshare. Not a bad idea, though the protocol differences are enormous and that is likely to keep the mapping slightly buggy for a long time. The real problem is not with AFP, which is a fine protocol, but with Appleshare, Apple's implementation of AFP. You can't make your Mac a server. This would exclude about 90% of the things I've used TOPS for. Client-only file servers are silly, especially on Appletalk. Unfortunately, after some months of using TOPS on a development Mac II, I had to come to the conclusion that TOPS is not really a background server. When someone would download the new version of my program, the mouse started jumping; somebody was sitting at the interrupt level too long. Mac TOPS does very little in interrupts, deferring all scheduling until the synchronous level by a trade secret mechanism; so I think the problem is really in Apple's ATP implementation. But a jumpy server is still a lot better than no server. >I think ( again ) that they are darned close and they >are working on solving the problems. I'm sure they are; the test is whether they usually break one thing in the course of fixing another. Like I said, there are major protocol differences, and the thing must be a programmer's nightmare unless they have a really solid model of execution. If you have any further information on the mapping, please share it.... -- Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim "Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will." - Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway"
geo@runx.ips.oz (George Bray ) (09/30/88)
A nice way to let Mac users play with an NFS server is with the GatorBox.
It's a LocalTalk/Ethernet bridge (like a Kinetics Fastpath) which makes
any NFS server appear like an AppleShare (AFP) server. Macs use the
AppleShare workstation software which comes with System 6.x.x.
They will be adding a card to the box to allow users to login by modem.
I have no affiliation with Cayman Systems (gatorbox manufactureers) but have
a file of twenty questions and answers about it. If there is interest,
I'll post it.
Cheers,
Geo
George Bray Voice: +61-2-484-1163 VoiceMail: +61-2-552-0210
The Sand Group uucp: uunet!munnari!ditsyda.oz.au!gbray
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and Development P.O. Box 165 Beecroft, NSW, 2119. A U S T R A L I Armf1992@uxf.cso.uiuc.edu (10/02/88)
Well we have a Gatorbox. The software we have is Beta version 2.something or
other. Yes, they are very helpful over the phone, but it needs a lot of work.
When we first got our Gatorbox, the permissions were handled so wrong that we
could not save most files. Cayman had to go to Sequent to get it fixed. We
were left holding a box of plastic without working software. Today, it just
hangs constantly. especially whenever anything is run in Light Speed C.
Unless there are some serious improvements, I would have to recomend against
using it for anything.
As an aside, it does work absolutly great with NCSA TelNet
Michael Rutman