dillon@POSTGRES.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (09/10/89)
I'm working on a simple nd (trackdisk) device / server for my
parallel port network. Currently works between two machines only.
In fact, I have it pretty much working. You run the server on
your main Amiga and it reserves X blocks of disk space (creates a
huge file). That is the 'disk' for another (diskless) Amiga connected to
it.
This other (diskless) amiga runs the old or fast filesystem over
a 'nddisk.device', similar to vd0: except the trackdisk goes over
the parallel port network to the server machine for r/w's. The server
machine then does read()/write() calls on the file.
Disadvantages:
Diskless machine has no access to server machines files... i.e.,
cannot share them and vise versa.
The size of the diskless machine's 'disk' is eaten out of the
server machine's disk. That is, If I specify a 5 MB disk you
end up with a 5 MB file on the server machine.
Advantages:
It works... once you get it formatted (really funny formatting
a *file* :-)). Better than having no HD at all for your 'other'
Amiga.
Good throughput, especially with the FFS.
Problem: format crashes or refuses to format. After many tries
I finally got it to format properly using:
mount nd0:
format nd0: name "foo" FFS QUICK
And it actually worked (but this crashes sometimes too). Once I get
the thing formatted I have no problems. It may have something to do with
the disk enviroment vector but I have no idea where or how this is
stored. Or, perhaps, the tag at the beginning of the trackdisk device
has changed size since 1.2 ?? help!
Does anybody at C-A know what I am doing wrong? Why does format
crash when nothing else does?
Eventually I will write a handler so everybody can share the same
filesystem but that is more difficult.
-Matt