On Mon, 15 May 2000, Alan Cox wrote:
> > In summary: filehandles are useful at the protocol level, but it's
> > good for clients to retain pathnames if they need to recover
> > filehandles.
>
> How do you know the recovered pathname is the same file ?
Don't expect UNIX semantics from a networked filesystem.
Instead, expect _sane_ semantics. The same way you have to do magic things
for NFS locking if you're a mail client that wants to handle atomicity, a
networked filesystem doesn't have to try to maintain exact UNIX behaviour.
A sane definition of "same file" over a network is, after all, "same
naming". What more is there?
If you're thinking "same inode", then you're not thinking about a
networked filesystem. You're thinking about a distributed UNIX filesystem.
Which is a different thing.
To get "same file" semantics, you acquire a lease on the file. There's no
question about that. But that is an issue that has nothing at all to do
with the _name_ of the file, whether that be a ASCII pathname or a
"filehandle". Understand that. A "lease" on a file is a real thing, and
gives you the guarantees you want - and has absolutely nothing to do with
naming.
Linus
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon May 15 2000 - 21:00:26 EST