Re: httpfs what is it?
> > In fact, we had this kind of thing in all BSD kernels starting
> > with 4.4BSD Lite (read: in FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD). It's called
> > 'portal' filesystem:
> Hurd translators owe the original idea to the Portal concept in the
> old BSD Architecture Manuals, first actually implemented in 4.4 BSD.
Ah, that's good to know. The similarities were so apparent that it
could not have been pure chance ;-)
> However, all the old BSD statements about what portals would be used
> for did not include things like transparent FTP, tar and the like. As
> far I have been able to tell, the Hurd design documents were the first
> places to actually describe the idea.
That is probably true. All BSD docs I came around just mentioned
that the portal fs was designed to provide an open serivce. They
didn't give as much examples as in the Hurd papers. 4.4 Lite also
didn't provide support libraries for Portal-FS writers nor examples
for transparent TCP and some such. The recent Portal-FS examples
(e.g. in NetBSD) could also have been backported from the Hurd design
paper. I don't know for sure though...
-Farid.
--
Farid Hajji -- Unix Systems and Network Admin | Phone: +49-2131-67-555
Broicherdorfstr. 83, D-41564 Kaarst, Germany | farid.hajji@ob.kamp.net
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