From clemc at ccc.com  Fri Apr  1 07:06:45 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2016 16:06:45 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Claim your early Unix contributions on GitHub
In-Reply-To: <56FBFB59.6000308@acm.org>
References: <56FB8616.6060908@aueb.gr>
 <CAOkr1zUow1CNrP_ZRMD1FxoAD2+kZkspEX3iLz-ZHGBeQBQTsQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <56FBF576.2000103@aueb.gr> <56FBFB59.6000308@acm.org>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2MWhZczOAd-pCTTOspTejyvTYEwRm+Sd_XTd_62aTuBpg@mail.gmail.com>

I've rehashed this here before... I'd really like to put this to bed (
Dioxides Spinellis -- it would be great if you could put this some where in
you files so it does not get lost).


I'll restate the history of fsck for my friend and one time lab partner,
Ted Kowalski - aka research!frodo or frodo at ece.cmu.edu as Ted passed a few
years ago and can not do this for himself.

Ted did his undergrad at Michigan and was Bill Joy's housemate (where wnj
was also an undergrad) in the early 1970s.  Both were MTS/360 hackers and
were introduced to UNIX there.    Ted would go to CMU for his grad work in
the mid/late 1970s (where I knew him when I was there) and Joy would do his
grad work at UCB in the same time frame (as did I were I knew him).  I
was originally a CMU TSS/360 [MTS's older brother] hacker and was
introduced to UNIX by Ted.***



The original FS tools for UNIX icheck/dcheck/ncheck were very crude.  TSS
and MTS (used a similar/same FS format) and and had a similar program in
the key of fsck that Ted was familiar (as did a number of DEC systems for
that matter).    Ted wrote the original version of premordial fsck for v6
at UMich (maybe v5 - Joy probably would know what the version of UNIX was
there then).

Ted took "pre-fsck" to Bell Lab the summer between Mich and CMU.     Ted
would rewrite and "continue hacking" fsck at CMU in the next year targeting
V6.   It was at this time that CMU was switching from V5 to V6, I do not
believe (remember) that Ted ever had fsck running on a V5 format FS, but
early versions could definitely be compiled for either v6 or v7 with
#ifdefs (I'm likely to have those sources somewhere if I can read a tape --
but I can tell you the bits were not in SCCS control).  I remember taking
his ire when we both edited a file at the same time ;-)

BTW: the reason why the errors from the original version of fsck were all
in UPPER CASE was because that's TSS and MTS did that.  So that's how I was
taught for sure and I believe Ted also.   A number of early CMU UNIX
programs look this way.

Note:  Ted was *originally* in the "UNIX Support Group" @ BTL - aka USG
(summit, not research and IIRC was Armando's officemate at USG).  By the
early 1980s, Ted would become part of Research, so the research!frodo
moniker became his (although I can not state when that was but other might
know).

When Ted (and Armando) were part of USB ???1977 or 78 maybe?? working on a
kernel referred to as UNIX/TS - which would later become the kernel release
by USG in PWB 2.0.  UNIX/TS was loosely based on bits that Ken and Dennis
were working with in Murray Hill - but the kernel and FS difference between
v6 and v7 were in UNIX/TS (PWB 2.0 et els).

At some point (June I think) Dennis (and the research folks) took a snap
shot of what was the research in 1979.  This would be released the folks
outside of BTL as V7.    Ted had not yet completed fsck and so it was not
(yet) in the research system (*i.e.* they still used
icheck/ncheck/dcheck).  But Ted would later put it into what would become
PWB 2.0.


Similarly, Ted would also give copies of the CMU program to Ken/Dennis,
Bill, and Armando for sure and I suspect some of his other friends at UMich
had it also.  I had done some >>small<< things to help him with the program
during my CMU time so I had it (it was how I learned C after being an
assembler, Bliss, Algol and SAIL hacker from the TSS, 10s and VMS).

Those of us UNIX hackers from CMU are also likely to have had fsck such as
dvk (CS),  gss (BIO), tron(Mellon), and others (for instance, I believe
Wayne Gramlich who was gss's housemate in Pittsburgh brought fsck from CMU
to MIT when he moved from undergrad @ CMU to grad student at MIT - again
someone like Noah might know when it showed up there).

The point is that fsck was officially a "CMU/EE Dept developed program"  -
although frodo certainly used UMich, as well as AT&T resources at USG
hacking on it also.  But because of the CMU origins it was able to swim the
UNIX oceans independently of the AT&T distribution methods of either
research or summit.  For instance, I brought it to Tektronix before I was
at UCB and it was at UCB by the time I was there.

I suspect it was Joy who put it into BSD at some point, although there was
definitely a number of students and faculty starting with Ken that moved
between BTL and UCB (i.e. any BTL "OYOC" student could have
brought anything with them); much less common students between CMU/UCB such
as myself, Mike Carey, Shafi Goldwasser just in my class but as I said I
think it predates us there.  I would have expected fsck to become part of
BSD around 3.0 but it might not have been until 4.0 or 4.1.   Also any SCCS
files you have from Joy/Kirk, are a number of years later than the original
development.  They are based on the version wnj would have gotten from Ted
at some point.

How it made it to DEC, I do not know, although there were enough folks from
lots of places like BTL much less academic institutions such as CMU
(including Gordon Bell who was one of our Profs, Dave Roger's who ran the
Vax project, Sam Fuller, and Bell's student Bell Strecker), that went to
DEC that it's not surprising fsck made it there too.

Clem


***A side note, while Multics/CTSS impacted the BTL & MIT folks, and
untold story
of UNIX history is how TSS, MTS and VM/CMS for the IBM 360 had  impact on
many for the UNIX hackers of that same time from other academic centers
(CMU, MIT, Stanford, Cornell, Princeton ...).

On Wed, Mar 30, 2016 at 11:14 AM, Pat Barron <patbarron at acm.org> wrote:

> On 3/30/2016 11:49 AM, Diomidis Spinellis wrote:
>
>>
>> Other commands that fall into this category include fsck (frodo), gres
>> (lem), efl (sif), diction (llc), and ideal (cvw). Somebody has commented on
>> this list that a secret tunnel linked Murray Hill and Berkeley. I'd welcome
>> any better explanations you may have.
>>
>
> FWIW, "fsck" existed in V7m (from DEC) as well, though I'm not sure it was
> necessarily the same program....
>
> --Pat.
>
>
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From ron at ronnatalie.com  Fri Apr  1 07:54:42 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ron Natalie)
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2016 17:54:42 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Claim your early Unix contributions on GitHub
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2MWhZczOAd-pCTTOspTejyvTYEwRm+Sd_XTd_62aTuBpg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <56FB8616.6060908@aueb.gr>
 <CAOkr1zUow1CNrP_ZRMD1FxoAD2+kZkspEX3iLz-ZHGBeQBQTsQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <56FBF576.2000103@aueb.gr> <56FBFB59.6000308@acm.org>
 <CAC20D2MWhZczOAd-pCTTOspTejyvTYEwRm+Sd_XTd_62aTuBpg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <000301d18b97$eefa5200$cceef600$@ronnatalie.com>

Thanks for that piece of history.   I remember well the days of using icheck and dcheck (coupled with some of the other tools like ncheck and clri…which we rewrote to clrm…much safer because it was easier to reverse if you got the wrong one.     One thing afflicting the V6 file system was that it wasn't too safe in the way it committed changes.   Hence, you could get "dups in free" and  inode link counts that differed from the number of entries in directories.    I remember being grilled on this my freshman year on the file system format, what the various failures were, how to detect them with icheck/dcheck and how to fix them before they'd let me play computer operator on the UNIX system.

FSCK was a big improvement but so was fixing up the ordering in the file system so as not to get degenerate cases (better to lose blocks from the free list than to have them duplicated).

My favorite FSCK story was I was called by an operator one time to tell me that "FSCK had gone into a loop."    When I got there, I found the machine running FSCK on the root, deciding it needed to reboot the machine and doing so and then rerunning FSCK getting the same error.     Somehow the operator neglected to mention that part of the loop was the machine rebooting.



From dds at aueb.gr  Fri Apr  1 19:01:15 2016
From: dds at aueb.gr (Diomidis Spinellis)
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2016 12:01:15 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] Claim your early Unix contributions on GitHub
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2MWhZczOAd-pCTTOspTejyvTYEwRm+Sd_XTd_62aTuBpg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <56FB8616.6060908@aueb.gr>
 <CAOkr1zUow1CNrP_ZRMD1FxoAD2+kZkspEX3iLz-ZHGBeQBQTsQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <56FBF576.2000103@aueb.gr> <56FBFB59.6000308@acm.org>
 <CAC20D2MWhZczOAd-pCTTOspTejyvTYEwRm+Sd_XTd_62aTuBpg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <56FE38DB.4040207@aueb.gr>

Thank you Clem! I added your description of the fsck birth to the 
repository creation source code. I'll also work on injecting the fsck 
(and SCCS) source code with the correct authorship between BSD-3 and 
BSD-4. Both made their appearance during that time via CSRG SCCS.

This is the first CSRG fsck SCCS commit.

Author: Kirk McKusick <mckusick at ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Thu Aug 27 06:47:37 1981 -0800

date and time created 81/08/26 23:47:37 by mckusick

SCCS-vsn: 1.1

usr/src/sbin/fsck/main.c | 1679
1 file changed, 1679 insertions(+)


Also, these are the first two commits of the SCCS commands.

Author: Bill Joy <root at ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Wed May 14 00:56:00 1980 -0800

date and time created 80/05/13 17:56:00 by root

SCCS-vsn: 1.1

usr/src/local/sccscmds/sccscmds.ok/cmd/delta.c | 670
1 file changed, 670 insertions(+)

commit 5ff237f5a32255288bd826872a309ee844435a1a
Author: Eric Allman <eric at ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Wed Jan 14 22:42:08 1981 -0800

date and time created 81/01/14 14:42:08 by eric

SCCS-vsn: 1.1

usr/src/local/sccscmds/sccscmds.ok/cmd/prs.c | 795
1 file changed, 795 insertions(+)


Diomidis

On 01/04/2016 00:06, Clem Cole wrote:
> I've rehashed this here before... I'd really like to put this to bed
> (Dioxides Spinellis -- it would be great if you could put this some
> where in you files so it does not get lost).



From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Apr  1 23:06:35 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2016 00:06:35 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Claim your early Unix contributions on GitHub
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2MWhZczOAd-pCTTOspTejyvTYEwRm+Sd_XTd_62aTuBpg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <56FB8616.6060908@aueb.gr>
 <CAOkr1zUow1CNrP_ZRMD1FxoAD2+kZkspEX3iLz-ZHGBeQBQTsQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <56FBF576.2000103@aueb.gr> <56FBFB59.6000308@acm.org>
 <CAC20D2MWhZczOAd-pCTTOspTejyvTYEwRm+Sd_XTd_62aTuBpg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1604012352490.76221@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 31 Mar 2016, Clem Cole wrote:

> The original FS tools for UNIX icheck/dcheck/ncheck were very crude.

I guess I should mention that somewhere in the AUUGN archives is a paper I 
wrote on the proper use of these tools (after having seen, and made, too 
many mistakes), along with the tool-of-last-resort "clri".

FSCK is a wonderful program, and has saved my bacon many times.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Apr  2 00:06:58 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2016 01:06:58 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Is the Teletype the unsung hero of Unix?
In-Reply-To: <2f2abee9b63b79d22de436ad6b373037.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <201603251443.u2PEh8OZ019856@skeeve.com> <56F5A7BF.4050300@aueb.gr>
 <2f2abee9b63b79d22de436ad6b373037.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1604020101250.76221@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Mon, 28 Mar 2016, scj at yaccman.com wrote:

> ...  and I once heard an old-timer growl at a young programmer "I've 
> written boot loaders that were shorter than your variable names!"

Ah, the 512-byte boot blocks...  We got pretty inventive in those days 
(and this was before secondary loaders!) with line editing etc.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From clemc at ccc.com  Sat Apr  2 00:41:43 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2016 09:41:43 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Claim your early Unix contributions on GitHub
In-Reply-To: <56FE38DB.4040207@aueb.gr>
References: <56FB8616.6060908@aueb.gr>
 <CAOkr1zUow1CNrP_ZRMD1FxoAD2+kZkspEX3iLz-ZHGBeQBQTsQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <56FBF576.2000103@aueb.gr> <56FBFB59.6000308@acm.org>
 <CAC20D2MWhZczOAd-pCTTOspTejyvTYEwRm+Sd_XTd_62aTuBpg@mail.gmail.com>
 <56FE38DB.4040207@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2PUsvUiPN0x+UT5i7cjt3-AuuO-PiS-C-YZ_kzD4gt1YA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 4:01 AM, Diomidis Spinellis <dds at aueb.gr> wrote:

> Thank you Clem!
>
​Most welcome.​




> I added your description of the fsck birth to the repository creation
> source code.
>
​Thank you.​




> I'll also work on injecting the fsck (and SCCS) source code with the
> correct authorship between BSD-3 and BSD-4. Both made their appearance
> during that time via CSRG SCCS.
>
​If I can find and read some old mag tapes with sources, I'll try to get
you earlier dates to put into your records.  I'll take that off line.​




>
> This is the first CSRG fsck SCCS commit.
>
> Author: Kirk McKusick <mckusick at ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
> Date: Thu Aug 27 06:47:37 1981 -0800
>

​1981 -- That makes sense...   I would come to UCB in September of '81, but
IIRC wnj had spent the summer before @ research; where Ted spent his
summers also.   Ted had came to CMU in '76 I believe and developed what
would become fsck that year on the EE Digital Lab's 11/34

@ CMU, later in '76, EE & Bio Med got an Unix machine of some flavor, as
did Mellon Institute (which would be the system with the first commercial
UNIX license for a University).     fsck did not make it over to CS to the
11/40e's until later probably '78, likely by dvk who was not EE but common
with me @ Mellon.

I took it with me to Tektronix in '79.    I think Wayne (an CMU EE UNIX
hacker) took his Hawaiian shirts to Cambridge, MA in '78, so that's about
the time it would have made it to MIT.

The important point is that fsck was 4-5 years old by the time it made it
to UCB and was already migrating to other places via sneaker-net.

Clem
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From reed at reedmedia.net  Sat Apr  2 07:00:53 2016
From: reed at reedmedia.net (Jeremy C. Reed)
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2016 16:00:53 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Claim your early Unix contributions on GitHub
In-Reply-To: <56FE38DB.4040207@aueb.gr>
References: <56FB8616.6060908@aueb.gr>
 <CAOkr1zUow1CNrP_ZRMD1FxoAD2+kZkspEX3iLz-ZHGBeQBQTsQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <56FBF576.2000103@aueb.gr> <56FBFB59.6000308@acm.org>
 <CAC20D2MWhZczOAd-pCTTOspTejyvTYEwRm+Sd_XTd_62aTuBpg@mail.gmail.com>
 <56FE38DB.4040207@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.11.1604011451590.24779@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

On Fri, 1 Apr 2016, Diomidis Spinellis wrote:

> This is the first CSRG fsck SCCS commit.
> 
> Author: Kirk McKusick <mckusick at ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
> Date: Thu Aug 27 06:47:37 1981 -0800
> 
> date and time created 81/08/26 23:47:37 by mckusick
> 
> SCCS-vsn: 1.1
> 
> usr/src/sbin/fsck/main.c | 1679

For the earlier code as shipped with BSD see:

4.0 and 4.1  usr/src/cmd/fsck.c
static char *sccsid = "@(#)fsck.c       4.10 (Berkeley) 11/15/80";

The changes document from (January 1980's 3BSD to November 1980's 4BSD) 
calls it the "new ... interactive repair program" and "new, intelligent, 
interactive file system check program" and that it obsoletes dcheck and 
ncheck and largely replaces icheck.

4.1.snap
static  char *sccsid = "@(#)fsck.c      4.13 (Berkeley) 81/03/09";

2.8 (Jun 16  1981 filestamp)
        char    *sccsid = "@(#)fsck.c   2.5";

>From those versions it is easy to see that the later main.c derived from 
the fsck.c. (By the time it gets to the version shipped with 4.3BSD




From patbarron at acm.org  Sat Apr  2 07:52:35 2016
From: patbarron at acm.org (Pat Barron)
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2016 17:52:35 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Claim your early Unix contributions on GitHub
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2MWhZczOAd-pCTTOspTejyvTYEwRm+Sd_XTd_62aTuBpg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <56FB8616.6060908@aueb.gr>
 <CAOkr1zUow1CNrP_ZRMD1FxoAD2+kZkspEX3iLz-ZHGBeQBQTsQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <56FBF576.2000103@aueb.gr> <56FBFB59.6000308@acm.org>
 <CAC20D2MWhZczOAd-pCTTOspTejyvTYEwRm+Sd_XTd_62aTuBpg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <56FEEDA3.2080500@acm.org>

On 3/31/2016 5:06 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
> I've rehashed this here before... I'd really like to put this to bed 
> (Dioxides Spinellis -- it would be great if you could put this some 
> where in you files so it does not get lost).
>
>
> I'll restate the history of fsck for my friend and one time lab 
> partner, Ted Kowalski - aka research!frodo or frodo at ece.cmu.edu 
> <mailto:frodo at ece.cmu.edu> as Ted passed a few years ago and can not 
> do this for himself.
>
> [...]

This is really great - thanks from me on this, also!

I missed all of this at CMU by several years.  By the time I got there, 
dvk was at the Software Engineering Institute (which is where I was, so 
that's how I met him), and as far as I am aware, the PDP-11's were 
mostly long gone, except for a few that were used as routers (I had an 
11/34a that we used as our router from the SEI building back to Wean Hall).

Sort of a bummer I missed out on a lot of the fun.  ;-)  I think the 
only thing interesting I did while I was there, Unix-wise, was getting 
the 4.3BSD DEQNA driver working with the DELQA - I gave those changes 
for a few people elsewhere that asked for them, but I can't even find 
them myself anymore....

--Pat.
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From grog at lemis.com  Sat Apr  2 08:41:33 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2016 09:41:33 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] Is the Teletype the unsung hero of Unix?
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1604020101250.76221@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <201603251443.u2PEh8OZ019856@skeeve.com> <56F5A7BF.4050300@aueb.gr>
 <2f2abee9b63b79d22de436ad6b373037.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1604020101250.76221@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20160401224132.GA18464@eureka.lemis.com>

On Saturday,  2 April 2016 at  1:06:58 +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Mar 2016, scj at yaccman.com wrote:
>
>> ...  and I once heard an old-timer growl at a young programmer "I've
>> written boot loaders that were shorter than your variable names!"
>
> Ah, the 512-byte boot blocks...  We got pretty inventive in those days
> (and this was before secondary loaders!) with line editing etc.

I was thinking more of the RIM loader on the PDP-8.  16 words or 24
bytes.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft MUA reports
problems, please read http://tinyurl.com/broken-mua
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From bqt at update.uu.se  Sat Apr  2 12:17:28 2016
From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2016 04:17:28 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Is the Teletype the unsung hero of Unix?
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1459562401.20104.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.1.1459562401.20104.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <56FF2BB8.8040900@update.uu.se>

On 2016-04-02 04:00, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

> On Saturday,  2 April 2016 at  1:06:58 +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Mar 2016, scj at yaccman.com wrote:
>>
>>> ...  and I once heard an old-timer growl at a young programmer "I've
>>> written boot loaders that were shorter than your variable names!"
>>
>> Ah, the 512-byte boot blocks...  We got pretty inventive in those days
>> (and this was before secondary loaders!) with line editing etc.
>
> I was thinking more of the RIM loader on the PDP-8.  16 words or 24
> bytes.

Bah! The RK8E bootloader for OS/8: 2 words... :-)

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


From charles.unix.pro at gmail.com  Sat Apr  2 12:35:35 2016
From: charles.unix.pro at gmail.com (Charles Anthony)
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2016 19:35:35 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Is the Teletype the unsung hero of Unix?
In-Reply-To: <56FF2BB8.8040900@update.uu.se>
References: <mailman.1.1459562401.20104.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <56FF2BB8.8040900@update.uu.se>
Message-ID: <CANV78LS-wTqnsOm7Xha6tD9CmYqfCQAEjUvwYsxuE7dQci1-sA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 7:17 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at update.uu.se> wrote:

> On 2016-04-02 04:00, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
>
> On Saturday,  2 April 2016 at  1:06:58 +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 28 Mar 2016, scj at yaccman.com wrote:
>>>
>>> ...  and I once heard an old-timer growl at a young programmer "I've
>>>> written boot loaders that were shorter than your variable names!"
>>>>
>>>
>>> Ah, the 512-byte boot blocks...  We got pretty inventive in those days
>>> (and this was before secondary loaders!) with line editing etc.
>>>
>>
>> I was thinking more of the RIM loader on the PDP-8.  16 words or 24
>> bytes.
>>
>
> Bah! The RK8E bootloader for OS/8: 2 words... :-)
>
>
DPS8-M: 11 36-bit words. Sad. But on the other hand, no actual CPU
instructions. All addresses and Channel Control Words and Data.

-- Charles
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From ram at rkrishnan.org  Fri Apr 29 18:58:11 2016
From: ram at rkrishnan.org (Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan)
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2016 14:28:11 +0530
Subject: [TUHS] Portals in 4.4 BSD
Message-ID: <1461920291.2703061.593186393.3DD04F16@webmail.messagingengine.com>

Hello everyone!

I had been lurking this list for long, this is my first post to this
list.

I read with a lot of interest, an old Usenix paper by the late Richard
Stevens on a system called "Portals":

 <https://www.usenix.org/legacy/publications/library/proceedings/neworl/stevens.html>

It explores a lot of ideas that found itself in Plan 9, like a
filesystem interface for sockets etc. Wondering if this survived in any
existing, so called "modern" Unix. I have always felt the need to have
something like this in Unix.

Cheers
-- 
  Ramakrishnan


From dot at dotat.at  Fri Apr 29 21:15:02 2016
From: dot at dotat.at (Tony Finch)
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2016 12:15:02 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Portals in 4.4 BSD
In-Reply-To: <1461920291.2703061.593186393.3DD04F16@webmail.messagingengine.com>
References: <1461920291.2703061.593186393.3DD04F16@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1604291108210.12603@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>

Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan <ram at rkrishnan.org> wrote:
>
> I read with a lot of interest, an old Usenix paper by the late Richard
> Stevens on a system called "Portals": [...]
> Wondering if this survived in any existing, so called "modern" Unix.

A descendent of the original code is still present in DragonFlyBSD:

http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/sys/vfs/portal
http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/sbin/mount_portal

The facility still exists in NetBSD but it has been reimplemented on top
of puffs, the Pass-to-Userspace Framework File System development
interface.

http://netbsd.gw.com/cgi-bin/man-cgi?mount_portal

It survived in FreeBSD for a long time, but eventually was removed in 2012
rather than being made multiprocessor-safe.

https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/commit/efcca33ac515c354e18135425794400ea32406a8

It also got removed from OpenBSD in 2011.

http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/sbin/mount_portal/Attic/mount_portal.8

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot at dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/  -  I xn--zr8h punycode
Trafalgar: Northerly or northeasterly 4 or 5, increasing 6 or 7 later, perhaps
gale 8 in northeast. Moderate or rough, but slight or moderate in southeast.
Fair. Good.


