Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!csv.rpi.edu!schoff From: schoff@csv.rpi.edu.UUCP Newsgroups: mod.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: NFS comments Message-ID: <8612191807.AA04236@csv.rpi.edu> Date: Fri, 19-Dec-86 13:07:45 EST Article-I.D.: csv.8612191807.AA04236 Posted: Fri Dec 19 13:07:45 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 20-Dec-86 03:56:01 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 21 Approved: tcp-ip@sri-nic.arpa NFS is claimed to be a general network file system, but it really isn't. As someone who is trying to implement an NFS server for a non-UNIX system, I've got lots of problems. Here are a few: There are some fields that are very UNIX specific. A userid field is used to indicate user names for things like file authors. This userid is a number and it is assumed that there is a GLOBAL /etc/passwd file so you can translate numbers to names. This is completely bogus. A userid should be a string, not a number. More could be said about the groupid field. I'd just like to comment on this aspect and let others comment on the rest. Back in 1982 when the new tacacs (TAC access) was being worked there was some discussion on the "network id" (which broadly is what NFS's ID is). Independantly of ANYTHING that SUN was tooling up for it was determined that the "network id" would in fact be a number. The last I heard that was still the plan (and implementation). Marty Schoffstall