Premium
Practical experience with OS/2 installable file systems
Author(s) -
Ogle David M.,
Sullivan Neil G.,
Williams E. Hollins
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/spe.4380220704
Subject(s) - operating system , computer science , file system , local area network , computer network , virtual file system , port (circuit theory) , kernel (algebra) , software , ssh file transfer protocol , embedded system , self certifying file system , engineering , mathematics , combinatorics , electrical engineering
The installable file system (IFS) faculty on OS/2 offers an efficient mechanism for expanding the abilities of the OS/2 kernel. Two prototypes illustrate the usefulness of the IFS facility. An OS/2 port of the Andrew File System (AFS) allows users to access global community files while retaining the private local file system on the OS/2 machine. An IFS implementation of a network protocol mapper, which maps TCP/IP socket calls to SNA Advanced Program‐to‐Program Communication (APPC) calls, provides the ability to run any socket program on an APPC network after simply re‐linking with the mapping library. The only impediment to the development of these prototypes is the lack of kernel‐level interfaces to operating system devices, resulting in time‐consuming data movement back up to the user level to access the network and the local disks. This impediment will disappear as OS/2 and its associated support software matures.