doug@wapsyvax.OZ (Doug Robb) (06/29/87)
I am looking for an implementation of NFS (network file system) to run between a 4.3 BSD vax 750, a uvax (Ultrix) and half a dozen pc's. I would like to know what software is available to do this and to hear from anybody who has headed off on this path. Thanks doug@wapsyvax.oz
fischer@umn-cs.UUCP (Scott Fischer) (07/08/87)
In article <272@wapsyvax.OZ>, doug@wapsyvax.OZ (Doug Robb) writes: > I am looking for an implementation of NFS (network file system) > to run between a 4.3 BSD vax 750, a uvax (Ultrix) and half a dozen > pc's. I would like to know what software is available to do > this. SUN makes a PC-NFS that I'm currently waiting to receive more information on. I really don't know how well it works or how much it costs, but I thought I'd mention it. I'd be interested in any other responses that you do receive. Could you forward please? ---------------------------------------------------------- | Scott Fischer - Computer Science Systems Group | | University of Minnesota - (612) 625-0876 | | | | fischer@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu or fischer@wkspe.cs.umn.edu | | rutgers!meccts!umn-cs!fischer | ----------------------------------------------------------
hoffman@pitt.UUCP (07/09/87)
In article <1721@umn-cs.UUCP> fischer@umn-cs.UUCP (Scott Fischer) writes: >In article <272@wapsyvax.OZ>, doug@wapsyvax.OZ (Doug Robb) writes: >> I am looking for an implementation of NFS (network file system) >> to run between a 4.3 BSD vax 750, a uvax (Ultrix) and half a dozen >> pc's. I would like to know what software is available to do >> this. > > >SUN makes a PC-NFS that I'm currently waiting to receive more information >on. I really don't know how well it works or how much it costs, but I >thought I'd mention it. We have Sun's PC-NFS version 1.0 here. It is a partial implementation of NFS in that it allows PCs to act as clients only, that is, PCs may use network resources such as printers and disks, but they may not offer their own resources to be shared. You may also remote-login to hosts that support telnet. Although we don't have it, I understand that version 2.0 has FTP support so that you can transfer files to/from non-NFS hosts. Quantity 1-4 prices are: Software only: $325 Software and manuals: $395 Software, manuals, and 3com 3C501 ethernet card: $995 Contact your local Sun rep for more details. Educational discounts are available. -- Bob Hoffman, N3CVL {allegra, bellcore, cadre, idis, psuvax1}!pitt!hoffman Pitt Computer Science hoffman%pitt@relay.cs.net
bob@uhccux.UUCP (Bob Cunningham) (07/09/87)
The Sun NFS for PCs does indeed work, and---in my opinion---very well. My otherwise vanilla IBM XT with its 3COM Etherlink card and Sun NFS software mounts several disk partitions and directories which physically reside on several Suns and our Alliant FX/8 which also supports NFS. For almost all intents and purposes, the PC treats these exactly as if they were disk drives physically attached to the PC. I've simply copied Lotus and other applications to those disks and run them in the normal ways. I also backup the XT's own hard disk to an NFS-mounted disk. However, note that the MSDOS file format is different than the Unix file format. In particular, MSDOS files have a carriage return (\r) preceeding each newline. The "dos2unix" and "unix2dos" comand filters fix that when required. The commands and utilities that don't work on NFS files are CHKDSK, DISKCOMP, DISKCOPY, FDISK, FORMAT, JOIN (doable slightly differently), LABEL, PRINT (doable slightly differently), RECOVER, SUBST, and SYST NU and similar disk-structure dependent programs probably don't work either. DIR works as expected, and also tells you what system the disk is exported from. The NSF-supplied comands include ARP, CHMOD, DOS2UNIX, LPCONFIG, LS, MV, NET, NETSTAT, NFSPING, NFSSTAT, RPCINFO, SHOWMNT, UNIX2DOS, YPCAT, and YPMATCH The NET command has a variety of flavors, including NET PRINT and others for general administration (mounting, unmounting) of NFS on a PC. Also bundled with the current version is a TELNET command with nominal vt100 emulation for the PC (requires ANSI.SYS).
jerry@oliveb.UUCP (07/09/87)
In article <1721@umn-cs.UUCP> fischer@umn-cs.UUCP (Scott Fischer) writes: >SUN makes a PC-NFS that I'm currently waiting to receive more information >on. I really don't know how well it works or how much it costs, but I >thought I'd mention it. It costs about $300 per copy. A built in check will shut it down if it "see"s another copy with the same serial number on the same network. It provides telnet with vt100 emulation, printer redirection, and the use of virtual drives that are actually on a host. There is no server mode so you can't do any PC to PC interaction. Sending a file from one PC to another would involve using a server as and intermediary. There is NO file transfer command so if you want to get something off a host without NFS or something that was not exported then you again have to use the NFS host as an intermediary. NFS is nice but a version of ftp would fill in the gaps. It is possible to execute binaries from the server. This makes it practical to boot off a floppy and run without a hard disk. Your programs and data files can all be on the server. Aside from sharing storage the important advantage is that the user no longer has to worry about backing up his hard disk. The maintainers of the server system can do that. Of couse when the server is down ... I have tried it out here but, unfortunately, the sun we were using as a server is connected thru a slow gateway. This made it impossible to see what the local speed would be but did demonstrate the robustness of the code. (The sun server was 10,000 miles away in Italy connected by a 4800 baud satilite link. About as remote a file system as you can get.) We plan to get NFS for our 4.3BSD Vaxen. Mt. Xinu has it with and without source. You can get their complete 4.3+bug fixes+NFS or you can get an add on package with just the NFS additions for a straight 4.3BSD system. Jerry Aguirre
cranor@udel.EDU (Chuck Cranor) (07/10/87)
In article <671@uhccux.UUCP> bob@uhccux.UUCP (Bob Cunningham) writes: >The Sun NFS for PCs does indeed work, and---in my opinion---very well. >However, note that the MSDOS file format is different than the >Unix file format. In particular, MSDOS files have a carriage >return (\r) preceeding each newline. The "dos2unix" and >"unix2dos" comand filters fix that when required. This sounds nice, but I never use DOS. Currently, I've been using Excelan's EXOS 205 stuff on my AT (with SCO xenix). It provides telnet/rlogin, ftp, and rwho (plus a programming lib). It does not have NFS. It would be nice to access files on our suns (or vaxen) via NFS, under xenix. Is anyone doing this? (I'd hate to be stuck with DOS, just to use NFS...) Chuck -- Chuck Cranor University of Delaware PHONE: (302)-451-6660 (UDel), (302)-737-5852 (home) ARPA: cranor@udel.EDU, UUCP: ...!<your_favorite_arpa_gateway>!udel.edu!cranor "I'd like to see John the Baptist's impersonation of Graham Hill." - R.J. Gumby
mjr@osiris.UUCP (Marcus Ranum) (07/10/87)
At my last job I set up several PCs to talk to Suns using PC-NFS. My overall impression was VERY good. It's fast and easy to install (if you have any basic knowledge of UNIX) (and RTFM). The actual functioning of the software is excellent, too. It was very nice to be able to know that our engineer's designs were getting dumped to a tape every night along with the rest of the Sun's files. No more messing with braindead DOS backup programs. They also has access to our "real" printers, through the net. Theoretically, you could actually get by quite well using a hard-diskless PC as a station. Yes, you can run binaries off of the Sun's disk. We had a large CAD package that took a lot of bumping and grinding from the PCs hard drive in order to load. Copying it to the Suns an running it over the ethernet gave a real boost in speed, as well as making various libraries globally accessible. It's a perfect solution for a lot of distributed PC applications. You can save a lot of buckage and time with this package. Seeing as you can get away without a hard disk (or just a cheap little one) and a printer, the thing almost pays for itself. DISCLAIMER: it worked great for me. I don't work for Sun. I'm just a happy and impressed customer. --mjr(); -- If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I get as crude as possible. These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness... -Johnny Mnemonic
dpw@rayssd.RAY.COM (Darryl P. Wagoner) (07/10/87)
In article <1920@oliveb.UUCP> jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry F Aguirre) writes: >In article <1721@umn-cs.UUCP> fischer@umn-cs.UUCP (Scott Fischer) writes: >>SUN makes a PC-NFS that I'm currently waiting to receive more information >>on. I really don't know how well it works or how much it costs, but I >>thought I'd mention it. >There is no server mode so you can't do any PC to PC interaction. >Sending a file from one PC to another would involve using a server as >and intermediary. There is NO file transfer command so if you want to >get something off a host without NFS or something that was not exported >then you again have to use the NFS host as an intermediary. NFS is nice >but a version of ftp would fill in the gaps. The new version, PC-NFS 2.0, does have FTP as well as rcp and rsh. We have tested it for everything that we could think of and PC-NFS 2.0 works better than expected. The part that doesn't work is the software that directly accesses the disk. I would expect that an FTP or rcp daemon will be forthcoming. I have the PC-NFS Toolkit and I can see that it would not be difficult to write such a daemon. Of course, since Messy DOS is single tasking it will tie up the system. -- Darryl Wagoner Raytheon Co.; Portsmouth RI; (401)-847-8000 x4089 best path {allegra|gatech|mirror|raybed2} -----\ next best {linus|ihnp4|uiucdcs} ------------------>!rayssd!dpw
michaele@tekgen.TEK.COM (Michael Edelman) (07/10/87)
In article <1920@oliveb.UUCP> jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry F Aguirre) writes: >There is NO file transfer command so if you want to get something off a host >without NFS or something that was not exported then you again have to use the >NFS host as an intermediary. The latest version (2.0?) of PC NFS (just released within the last month or so) has FTP in it. It also has rsh and rcp. Michael Edelman Engineering Network Severices DS 50/454 Tektronix, Inc. P.O. Box 500 Beaverton, OR 97077 UUCP: {ihnp4 | decvax | ucbvax}!tektronix!michaele ARPA: michaele%tektronix.TEK.COM@RELAY.CS.NET CSnet: michaele@tektronix.TEK.COM MaBell: (503) 627-6707
geoff@eagle_snax.UUCP ( R.H. coast near the top) (07/10/87)
In article <1920@oliveb.UUCP>, jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry F Aguirre) writes: > In article <1721@umn-cs.UUCP> fischer@umn-cs.UUCP (Scott Fischer) writes: > >SUN makes a PC-NFS that I'm currently waiting to receive more information > >on. [....] > There is NO file transfer command so if you want to > get something off a host without NFS or something that was not exported > then you again have to use the NFS host as an intermediary. NFS is nice > but a version of ftp would fill in the gaps. PC-NFS 2.0 (shipping for a couple of months now) includes FTP, RCP and RSH. If you've got 1.0 and want to upgrade, you can either call Customer Service or email me for details. There's a nominal charge for a kit which will upgrade an unlimited number of 1.0 systems. > Jerry Aguirre -- "You want a disclaimer form? Next window, please..." Geoff Arnold, Sun Microsystems East Coast Division (home of PC-NFS) UUCP: {ihnp4,decwrl,...}!sun!garnold ARPA: garnold@sun.com
rubin@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mike Rubin) (07/12/87)
In article <671@uhccux.UUCP>, bob@uhccux.UUCP (Bob Cunningham) writes: > The Sun NFS for PCs does indeed work, and---in my opinion---very well. .... > Also bundled with the current version is a TELNET command with > nominal vt100 emulation for the PC (requires ANSI.SYS). Also bundled with the copy of PC-NFS we just got is "rsh", which is real useful if you want to keep your PC files under (say) SCCS on the server. The only problem with PC-NFS is that it's a client-only NFS implementation, i.e. nothing from outside can see files on the PC's disk; this means you can't really do remote backups of the PC's (the PC user must issue a command to dump his files down to the server, which hopefully has enough empty disk space) and you can't share files among PC's. I don't know if PC-NFS is small enough to usefully run on a floppy-only PC, where it would make the most sense. --Mike Rubin Timeplex, Inc. rutgers!timeplex!mrubin
jh@tut.fi (Juha Hein{nen) (07/13/87)
We also are happy customers of PC NFS 2.0. The only thing still missing is Netbios emulation on top of TCP/IP. When we'll have it from Sun East Coast Division? -- Juha Heinanen Tampere Univ. of Technology Finland jh@tut.fi (internet), tut!jh (UUCP)
mad@motatl.UUCP (Mark Davidson) (07/13/87)
> The Sun NFS for PCs does indeed work, and---in my opinion---very well. > > My otherwise vanilla IBM XT with its 3COM Etherlink card and Sun NFS > software mounts several disk partitions and directories which > physically reside on several Suns and our Alliant FX/8 which also > supports NFS. > Motorola Microcomputers also has an Ethernet link between the Unix filesystem and a PC fitted with a 3COM card. It works in much the same ways as the SUN/PC NFS. This link called PC-Interface allows you to mount up to 1.3 Gbytes of disk storage to use as a very LARGE PC-fileserver. Text files are converted for the different operating systems to use and a VT100 emulator is also included. PC-Interface looks just lik a large PC formatted drive. It actually takes the next available hard disk (D:,E:,...,Z:) and actually uses that logical drive to interface to the Unix system. On the PC/MS-DOS machine it looks like PC/MS-DOS not UNIX. -- Regards, Mark /\/\/\/\/\/\/\ << DISCLAIMER >> "...Hep me!...Hep me!...I've been HYPnotized!!!..." Mark Davidson - SE @ Motorola MicroComputer Division, Atlanta, Ga. UUCP: {hplabs!motsj1, mot!motsj1} motbos!motatl!mad Voice: 404-449-0493 UUCP: 404-449-9635 Fax: 404-449-8417
geoff@eagle_snax.UUCP ( R.H. coast near the top) (07/14/87)
In article <13271@topaz.rutgers.edu>, rubin@topaz.rutgers.edu (Mike Rubin) writes: > In article <671@uhccux.UUCP>, bob@uhccux.UUCP (Bob Cunningham) writes: > > [...] Also bundled with the current version is a TELNET command with > > nominal vt100 emulation for the PC (requires ANSI.SYS). ANSI.SYS is needed only to make the various network utilities look nice (highlighting hostnames, etc.). Telnet does its own screen update: it wouldn't be quick enough through ANSI.SYS. > > [...] I don't know if PC-NFS is small enough to usefully run on > a floppy-only PC, where it would make the most sense. Well, how small is small enough? In terms of disk space, all you need on your boot diskette are DOS, COMMAND.COM, ANSI.SYS, PCNFS.SYS, NET.EXE, your choice of link level driver, PCNFS.MSG (the messages) and AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS. That lot will easily fit on a floppy. Once you're up, you can tell DOS and PC-NFS both to look on a network drive for their files (via the COMSPEC and NFSDISK environment variables) and you can then run diskless. -- "You want a disclaimer form? Next window, please..." Geoff Arnold, Sun Microsystems East Coast Division (home of PC-NFS) UUCP: {ihnp4,decwrl,...}!sun!garnold ARPA: garnold@sun.cOne