On Mon, 26 Jan 2004, Erik Dykema wrote: > Hi- > Thanks for your response! > Apoligies if I have used the wrong terminology. The 'host-to-host' > cable I am referring to I see described other places as a USB-Net > cable, a smartlink cable, a file transfer cable, etc. There seems to be > one for sale here: > http://www.iogear.com/products/product.php?Item=GUN161 > What made me refer to this as a host-to-host usb cable was that it came > up as such when I searched for that string on google. > > The essence of what I am looking for, is exactly what you described; > one machine to act as a storage device for another. > After doing some more reading I understand what you mean regarding a > usb 'host' and 'device'. I think I was envisioning that a usb 'host' > could emulate a 'device', i.e. one PC could emulate an external hard > drive, but it seems like there are hardware issues. Is there a general > purpose / programmable USB controller that can be configured to be > either a host or a device?
Not as far as I know. > The device i referred to above, what I called a 'host-to-host cable', > solves the problem of connecting two hosts in the following way: it > puts a 'device' in the middle of the cable, in between the two hosts, so > each host is individually talking to a device, but through the device > they are talking to each other. I see. A purist might insist that it's actually two devices in the same container, communicating with each other and their respective hosts. That's because a USB device is, strictly speaking, allowed to connect to only a single host. The marketing information from IOgear doesn't make it clear how that thing really works. It might be imitating a USB-ethernet interface on each side, so the two hosts appear to be connected over an ordinary network. > Something that strikes me as being more useful / interesting would be a > similar 'host to host' cable, with a device/gadget in the middle, but > asymmetrical in the following way: Plug the green end of the cable into > a host, and that host sees it as a storage device. To the host that the > other end is plugged into (blue), it appears to be a USB networking > device. You could run different sorts of software (for example NFS) > that would supply the blue end with filesystems, and the machine on the > green end would see it as an external / usb hard drive. > This is obviously non-trivial logic required in the middle, but if > there is a 'programmable controller' such as i described above it > doesn't seem like it would be impossible... Why not just use a symmetrical setup, where each host thinks it's connected via its USB port to a network where it can see the other host? Then normal networking protocols (like NFS) will allow each to appear as a storage device to the other and will permit other tasks as well (like remote login). Alan Stern ------------------------------------------------------- The SF.Net email is sponsored by EclipseCon 2004 Premiere Conference on Open Tools Development and Integration See the breadth of Eclipse activity. February 3-5 in Anaheim, CA. http://www.eclipsecon.org/osdn _______________________________________________ [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe, use the last form field at: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-usb-devel
