[OpenAFS-devel] Re: on sockets and devices in AFS

[Jeffrey Altman]

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On 9/16/2010 6:07 PM, Steve Simmons wrote:

> Named sockets, named pipes, fifos, etc, are another interesting point. =
None of those are normally associated with a network service unless one t=
akes extra steps to do so. Having those items be global because they happ=
en to be in AFS . . . surprise! And let's again consider what ACLs mean.

I can think of several examples of distributed network file systems
within which if a named pipe is constructed in the distributed
namespace, it is distributed.  LanManager and Plan9 are two obvious
examples.

> I could go on, and in fact deleted a few paragraphs before sending. In =
summary, I don't think turning a global file space into a global service =
space should be done without a lot more thought and buyin from the the de=
velopers, the admins, and the end users.

Organizations that commit to AFS as their global name space do in fact
want mechanisms in that name space to represent both local and remote
objects whether they be devices, pipes, sockets, etc.

When these objects can be created in AFS it will be important that they
have new object types so that clients can distinguish between local
pipes/devices/sockets that they are required to manage and remote ones
that are managed via file system operations.

In the meantime, no client today is capable of using these future object
types and as a result I believe that the proper behavior for today's
clients is to maintain the object locally and mask it from the file
server.  That way it becomes possible for future local pipes to be
created within the file system directory without breaking today's
clients that will not know what to do with them.

Jeffrey Altman


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