Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!andante!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!gatech!ncar!ames!oliveb!sun!gorodish!guy
From: guy@gorodish.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Rename bug?
Message-ID: <55437@sun.uucp>
Date: 4 Jun 88 21:54:13 GMT
References: <9312@eddie.MIT.EDU> <11658@mimsy.UUCP> <1126@mcgill-vision.UUCP> <1132@mcgill-vision.UUCP>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
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> I consider the whole vfs-based filesystem as an NFS thing, since it
> exists only to support NFS.

Which demonstrates that you *don't* know why the VFS mechanism exists.  IT does
not "exist only to support NFS."  It exists to support *multiple* file systems;
in other words, to permit several different file system types to share the same
system call interface, and to permit new file system types to be added without
rewhacking the system call interface.

The following file system types are currently provided by Sun for the VFS
interface: UFS, NFS, and an MS-DOS file system implementation provided by the
Sun consulting group.  AT&T's RFS, "/proc", and other file system types could
also be implemented atop the VFS mechanism.  I think some knowledgable
customers have also looked at implementing, or are implementing, their own file
system types.

Neither the VFS mechanism nor Sun RPC exist solely to support NFS, despite the
fact that some people *think* they do (and even publicly claim that they do).
They were both designed as general tools, and NFS was implemented atop them.