On Fri, 23 Jun 2000, Paul Lussier wrote:
> NFS is absolutely the worst solution out there for a distributed
> filesystem, except for all the rest.
[...]
> All the other filesystems out there have always been university type
> research projects that the corporate world hasn't trusted.
Plus, they have largely been way overkill for what most people need (from
what I've heard, anyway -- I'm no expert on advanced file systems).
I want to ask the list's opinion on this. This has been mentioned in
passing before, but I think a larger discussion might yield more ideas. The
question is, what alternatives to NFS are there for simple in-office networked
file access?
There's NFS, which has a number of security issues inherent in its design.
It requires (AFAIK) host-trust relationships, which are insecure in most
office desktop environments.
There's SMB (Server Message Block, AKA CIFS (Common Internet File System
(now *there's* a laugh!), AKA Windows File Sharing, AKA LAN Manager). It does
have some nice features: Strong locking, opportunistic locking, and per-user
authentication for example. But it is also a proprietary, high-overhead, and
incredibly crufty protocol, doesn't support host-based authentication (if you
want it), and doesn't support Unix-style security (i.e., read/write/execute
user/group/other). In the end, it is often as bad, if not worse, then NFS.
There's NCP. Novell Core Protocol. Novell. 'Nuff said. (Actually, NCP
does support Unix permissions, I believe, but it is highly proprietary,
crufty, and based on IPX. Basically, SMB all over again. Why make the same
mistake twice?)
There's AppleTalk. [Pause for laughter.] Moving on...
There are things like AFS, Coda, and GFS, which all seem to be designed in a
better fashion, from what little I've heard. However, they are generally
designed around extremely distributed (i.e., world-wide) deployment, including
offline access and local caching. Perhaps some of them are actually
appropriate for local use, too, but I don't know. Does anybody have any
experience in this department?
There are likely others as well. I encourage anyone who knows of some to
speak up.
--
Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Net Technologies, Inc. <http://www.ntisys.com>
Voice: (800)905-3049 x18 Fax: (978)499-7839
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