74 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
74 lines
3.6 KiB
Plaintext
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.\" Copyright (c) 1986 The Regents of the University of California.
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.\" All rights reserved.
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.\"
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.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
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.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
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.\" are met:
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.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
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.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
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.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
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.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
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.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
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.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
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.\" must display the following acknowledgement:
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.\" This product includes software developed by the University of
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.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
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.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
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.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
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.\" without specific prior written permission.
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.\"
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.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
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.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
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.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
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.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
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.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
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.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
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.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
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.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
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.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
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.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
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.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
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.\"
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.\" @(#)abstract.ms 5.2 (Berkeley) 4/16/91
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.\"
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.TL
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Toward a Compatible Filesystem Interface
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.AU
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Michael J. Karels
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Marshall Kirk McKusick
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.AI
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Computer Systems Research Group
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Computer Science Division
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Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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University of California, Berkeley
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Berkeley, California 94720
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.LP
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As network or remote filesystems have been implemented for
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.UX ,
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several stylized interfaces between the filesystem implementation
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and the rest of the kernel have been developed.
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Notable among these are Sun Microsystems' virtual filesystem interface
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using vnodes, Digital Equipment's Generic File System architecture,
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and AT&T's File System Switch.
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Each design attempts to isolate filesystem-dependent details
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below the generic interface and to provide a framework within which
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new filesystems may be incorporated.
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However, each of these interfaces is different from
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and incompatible with the others.
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Each of them addresses somewhat different design goals.
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Each was based upon a different starting version of
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.UX ,
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targetted a different set of filesystems with varying characteristics,
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and uses a different set of primitive operations provided by the filesystem.
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The current study compares the various filesystem interfaces.
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Criteria for comparison include generality, completeness, robustness,
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efficiency and esthetics.
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As a result of this comparison, a proposal for a new filesystem interface
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is advanced that includes the best features of the existing implementations.
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The proposal adopts the calling convention for name lookup introduced
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in 4.3BSD.
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A prototype implementation is described.
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This proposal and the rationale underlying its development
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have been presented to major software vendors
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as an early step toward convergence upon a compatible filesystem interface.
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