>But wouldn't you agree that files kept on a remote POSIX file system is >an important and common class of remotes resources for which we don't >quite have a consensus on how to use 9P?
yes, but both your examples are things of purely local significance. the symbolic links point to something local (or not), and the major/minor numbers are decidedly only local (since they index a kernel's data structures!). so: access the things they refer to. sorry, to which they refer.