Excerpts from mail: 15-Mar-94 Re: NCSA Mosaic - AFS aware Derek
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (942)
> I do think it is a good thing to be able to do this, but I'm unclear
> as to an easy transformation of an http URL to an AFS (or file) URL.
> For example, I know that these two URLs are functionally equivalent:
> http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/warlord/home_page.html
> file://localhost/afs/athena.mit.edu/user/w/a/warlord/WWW/home_page.html
> (well, they are equivalent if you have AFS and know about the Athena
> AFS cell and have packet-connectivity to the athena servers, etc.)
> However I can't think of an easy way for the *client* to know that
> these are equivalent. The first URL could just have easily been a
> local file on the server www.mit.edu!
> I'd like anyone with a WWW client to be able to see my home_page, and
> although it would be easier (and probably faster) for people with AFS
> to look at it directly, not everybody does have it.
> So, what is a way that, give only the knowledge of the first URL, you
> can find the second URL?
> -derek
It looks like this "mapping" to AFS would have to occur at the http
server level since it is the only one that knows the relation of the
relative URL (path starting at the server's root directory) to the real
AFS path. But then, the client program has to tell the server that it
can handle the remapping (can see /afs).
Rob,
aka "Mapping the web"
