RFS vs. NFS

[Leslie Mikesell]

In article <7556 at brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn at brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>) writes:
>I agree with your comments, but to be fair it should be noted
>that one of the explicit design goals of NFS was to work not
>only with UNIX filesystems but also with MS-DOS filesystems.
AT&T sells a DOS server product for the 3B line that provides
netbios compatible file and print services to PC's connected
via the Starlan network. The unix semantics are not completely
preserved (for examples FIFOs are not visible from DOS) but
when a unix home directory is shared by the dos server the ownership
of the files is maintained properly (even though the dos machine
doesn't understand this).  Password checking is done to establish
the link, of course, and a program is available that allows execution
of unix commands from the dos command line with permissions based
on the id associated with the connected home directory.  It is possible to 
to pipe data between dos and unix programs.  If remote unix directory
is mounted via RFS into a directory shared by the DOS server, the
files appear in the expected location (even though it takes two hops
over the net to get there).  Some munging of the unix filenames is
done to produce unique names that dos will accept, otherwise the files
look the same from either os.

I am currently involved in setting up an office with about 30 PC's
(expected to be around 80 by the end of the year) with all of the
file storage and shared printers on unix machines.  Access is not
blazingly fast but certainly acceptable (seems like about 1/2 local
hd speed on the average).  The only real deficiency I can see so far
is that there is no way for the unix machine to initiate contact with
a PC, for example to give a notification of mail or use a printer connected
to a PC.
  -Les Mikesell
                              ...ihnp4!chinet!les