buck@siswat.UUCP (A. Lester Buck) (01/06/89)
[I just turned on my feed for these two newsgroups, so I hope this is the right place to ask about Network File Systems] I need to learn about NFS but only know the small bits I have picked up by reading various (other) newsgroups. Could someone please recommend good technical publications on NFS? I am looking for a reasonably detailed discussion of the concepts and capabilities, but light on implementation specific details. Any specific reference to Sun documentation that I could order would be terrific. Now a few specific questions: Can NFS handle the idea of records in files, as on mainframes? (I hear Intel has some implementation for this. I guess VMS must have handled it somehow, too.) Is this done by putting some record layering code in the file pipeline, or what? References would be great. Can NFS handle different character codes (i.e., ASCII to/from EBCDIC) between machines? Not the simple case of all text or all binary, but say a database with binary fields and character fields within a record. Again, is there a hook for a filter within the file data stream. Or is there no way to handle such things transparently? What prompted these questions: I am doing some contract driver work for a local company just getting its feet wet in Unix (AIX). They are a massive IBM customer and want their new RT workstations to have access to seismic data sets on the mainframes (MVS). IBM is looking for a testbed for their planned implementation of NFS on mainframes, and they want to experiment on this company's machines. I told them I didn't know zip about NFS, but they had me sit in on the meeting anyway and now I am interested in learning more. Thanks for any help, -- A. Lester Buck ...!uhnix1!moray!siswat!buck
slf@well.UUCP (Sharon Lynne Fisher) (01/08/89)
There's a newsgroup for NFS called either comp.dcom.nfs or comp.protocols.nfs. (Most likely the latter; I'm just too lazy to look it up.) Geoff Arnold, the Sun guy in charge of NFS, hangs out there.
tdh@moriaMoria.Sp.Unisys.Com (Thomas Hintz) (01/12/89)
In article <369@siswat.UUCP>, buck@siswat.UUCP (A. Lester Buck) writes: > Can NFS handle the idea of records in files, as on mainframes? > ... > Is this done by putting some record layering code in the > file pipeline, or what? References would be great. > Can NFS handle different character codes (i.e., ASCII to/from > EBCDIC) between machines? Not the simple case of all text > or all binary, but say a database with binary fields and > A. Lester Buck ...!uhnix1!moray!siswat!buck NFS doesn't have 'hooks' persay. NFS files appear as normal data files to the system. A NFS implementaion can choose to filter files in special ways depending on some context of the file (ie. the same file named several ways could trigger different filters). I reality, I don't know an NFS that does that, but then I don't know IBM's NFS. I may be porting NFS to UNISYS 1100 series mainframes soon. The same conversion problems exist: 1100 data files occur in many forms. If we do this, we may choose to allow filtering of files by both name context, and by data content since 1100 files also have 'SDF' words to describe each record. Sounds messy. -- - - - - Thomas D. Hintz (612) 687-2684 UNISYS tdh@moria.sp.unisys.com Network Engineering ..!com50!mscunx!moria!tdh
geoff@eagle_snax.UUCP ( R.H. coast near the top) (01/12/89)
In article <10266@well.UUCP>, slf@well.UUCP (Sharon Lynne Fisher) writes: > > There's a newsgroup for NFS called either comp.dcom.nfs or comp.protocols.nfs. > (Most likely the latter; I'm just too lazy to look it up.) Geoff Arnold, the > Sun guy in charge of NFS, hangs out there. You're too kind, Sharon. The newsgroup is indeed comp.protocols.nfs, but I'm hardly "the Sun guy in charge of NFS". I'm just the PC-NFS architect. Geoff -- Geoff Arnold, Sun Microsystems Inc. | "It is well known that the longer one PC Dist. Sys. Group (home of PC-NFS) |postpones a pleasure, the greater the UUCP: {hplabs,decwrl...}!sun!garnold |pleasure when it arrives. Therefore, if ARPA: garnold@sun.com |one postpones it forever..." (Smullyan)