On Thursday 05 January 2006 12:12, Oliver Fromme wrote: > > Lou Kamenov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On 04/01/06, Oliver Fromme <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > [..] > > > > > It would be much easier to use HTTP instead of (ab)using > > > file system operations. Just install an Apache web server > > > on your server machine and write a small CGI. The Windows > > > clients can simply use a web browser to upload their data > > > to your CGI. Then your CGI does whatever is necessary to > > > communicate with your black box, and sends the result back > > > to the client's web browser. > > > > representing different resources as files is not a new concept.. but > > rather an old one. look at plan 9. > > Right. Or look at devfs, procfs, fdescfs, portalfs etc. > > However, being able to represent resources or information > via the file system does not necessarily mean that it is > a particularly good idea to do so. For example, I think > that procfs does not really make much sense. Especially > Linux' procfs is a bad example of cramming too many things > into the file system which do not belong there; it's just > a big mess. It might be "cool", it might be "easy to do, > so lets do it", but it's horribly inefficient and does not > make sense. > > Another important point is the common guideline that as few > things as possible should be implemented in the kernel. > The kernel should provide interfaces to the hardware and > to essential kernel facilities, but everything else should > happen in userland. Richard is trying to implement a > rather simple client-server mechanism to access a certain > device on a server machine (I assume that there is already > a driver for that device). There is no sane reason to do > that on file system level. Handling it in userland is much > more robust, easier to recover in case of problems, and > easier to debug.
Again, it was one of my original questions: 'is my idea simply stupid ?' And, yes, the communication via http is already working - nothing great. It was simply the idea to go one step further: wrap some of functions into kind of 'file-transfer' from the client's point of view. The idea (to me) still is tempting - but I will look at samba-vfs modules, possibly also fuse - which are clearly in userland. (I fully agree with the common guideline: as few as possible in kernel !) regards Richard -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen Richard Kästner EDV-Beratung Woerthgasse 17 2500 Baden Austria _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"