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From: jerry@oliveb.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.lans,comp.sources.wanted
Subject: Re: NFS availability
Message-ID: <1920@oliveb.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Jul-87 16:39:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: oliveb.1920
Posted: Thu Jul  9 16:39:49 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 12-Jul-87 02:05:19 EDT
References: <272@wapsyvax.OZ> <1721@umn-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry F Aguirre)
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 35
Keywords: Sun NFS PC
Xref: utgpu comp.dcom.lans:568 comp.sources.wanted:1357
Summary: Sun PC/NFS cost ~$300.

In article <1721@umn-cs.UUCP> fischer@umn-cs.UUCP (Scott Fischer) writes:
>SUN makes a PC-NFS that I'm currently waiting to receive more information
>on.  I really don't know how well it works or how much it costs, but I 
>thought I'd mention it.

It costs about $300 per copy.  A built in check will shut it down if it
"see"s another copy with the same serial number on the same network.
It provides telnet with vt100 emulation, printer redirection, and the
use of virtual drives that are actually on a host.

There is no server mode so you can't do any PC to PC interaction.
Sending a file from one PC to another would involve using a server as
and intermediary.  There is NO file transfer command so if you want to
get something off a host without NFS or something that was not exported
then you again have to use the NFS host as an intermediary.  NFS is nice
but a version of ftp would fill in the gaps.

It is possible to execute binaries from the server.  This makes it
practical to boot off a floppy and run without a hard disk.  Your
programs and data files can all be on the server.  Aside from sharing
storage the important advantage is that the user no longer has to worry
about backing up his hard disk.  The maintainers of the server system
can do that.  Of couse when the server is down ...

I have tried it out here but, unfortunately, the sun we were using as a
server is connected thru a slow gateway.  This made it impossible to see
what the local speed would be but did demonstrate the robustness of the
code.  (The sun server was 10,000 miles away in Italy connected by a
4800 baud satilite link. About as remote a file system as you can get.)

We plan to get NFS for our 4.3BSD Vaxen.  Mt. Xinu has it with and
without source.  You can get their complete 4.3+bug fixes+NFS or you can
get an add on package with just the NFS additions for a straight
4.3BSD system.
				Jerry Aguirre