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 NAME    [Toc]    [Back]
      pfs, PFS - portable file system

 DESCRIPTION    [Toc]    [Back]
      The Portable File System, or PFS, allows access to a variety of CD-ROM
      file systems.  Currently supported file systems include: iso9660, high
      sierra, RockRidge Interchange.

      The PFS package consists of 7 programs:

           pfs_mountd           is responsible for maintaining local and
                                remote mounts.  It must be running on both
                                PFS clients and PFS servers.  The pfs_mountd
                                program validates arguments, and spawns
                                pfs_mountd.rpc.

           pfs_mountd.rpc       is the RPC server code associated with
                                pfs_mountd.  It should not be executed
                                directly.

           pfsd                 responds to all client requests for a given
                                mounted CD-ROM file system.  pfsd needs to
                                be running on all systems designated as PFS
                                servers.  pfsd validates arguments, and
                                spawns pfsd.rpc.

           pfsd.rpc             is the RPC server code associated with pfsd.
                                It should not be executed directly.

           pfs_exportfs         makes local directories available for
                                mounting by PFS clients.

           pfs_mount            mounts CD-ROM file system locally or from
                                server.

           pfs_umount           unmounts CD-ROM file system locally or from
                                server.

      Client file access calls are converted to PFS protocol requests, and
      are sent to the server system over the network.  The server receives
      the request, performs the actual file system operation, and sends a
      response back to the client.

      The Portable File System operates in a stateful fashion using remote
      procedure (RPC - rfc1057) calls built on top of external data
      representation (XDR - rfc1014) protocol.  The RPC protocol provides
      for version and authentication parameters to be exchanged for security
      over the network.

      A server can grant access to a specific filesystem to certain clients
      by adding an entry for that filesystem to the server's



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      /etc/pfs_exports file and running pfs_exportfs(1M).

      A client gains access to that filesystem with the pfs_mount command.
      Once the filesystem is mounted by the client, the server issues a file
      handle to the client for each file (or directory) the client accesses
      or creates.  If the disc is unmounted at the server, the file handles
      becomes stale, and remote requests will return stale file handle
      messages.

      A server may also be a client with respect to filesystems it has
      mounted over the network, but its clients cannot gain access to those
      filesystems.  Instead, the client must mount a filesystem directly
      from the server on which it resides.

 ERRORS    [Toc]    [Back]
      Generally physical disk I/O errors detected at the server are returned
      to the client for action.  If the server is down or inaccessible, the
      client will see the message:

           PFS server host not responding, retrying...

      It will retry 4 times, and then finally return failure.

 WARNINGS    [Toc]    [Back]
      PFS is obsolete and no longer supported on any HP-UX release.
      Delivery of PFS interfaces will be discontinued in the next HP-UX
      release.

      PFS, from Young Minds, Inc. (now defunct), was originally adopted by
      HP to provide accessibility to Rock Ridge Interchange file system
      format on iso9660 CD-ROM file systems.  The equivalent functionality
      is now provided via the HP-UX CDFS file system type and HP-UX's
      standard file systems commands.

      PFS has known functionality and performance problems.  HP customers
      are urged to stop using the PFS interfaces, and move to accessing all
      CD-ROM file system formats by using the standard HP-UX commands,
      specifying the file system type as cdfs.  For example, to mount a CDROM
 file system, use:

           mount -F cdfs /dev/dsk/c0t0d4 /cdrom

      There is no need to treat the cdfs file system type differently from
      any other file system type; therefore, no special daemons or commands
      are required to access the variety of CD-ROM file system formats.

      See mount(1M) and mount_cdfs(1M).

 AUTHOR    [Toc]    [Back]
      pfs was developed by Young Minds, Inc.




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 FILES    [Toc]    [Back]
      /etc/pfs_exports

 SEE ALSO    [Toc]    [Back]
      pfs_exports(5), fstab(4), pfs_mount(1M), pfs_exportfs(1M), pfsd(1M).


 Hewlett-Packard Company            - 3 -      HP-UX 11i Version 2: Sep 2004