Hello, I am Sergiu Ivanov. This summer I am working on the implementing the VFS-style union-mounting functionality in GNU/Hurd. This means setting a translator on a node in such a way that it's filesystem gets merged with the underlying node's filesystem instead of covering it. In the current implementation, it was considered necessary that some fsys_* RPCs be forwarded to the mounted translator to assure transparency. While deciding which RPCs should be forwarded we came over fsys_getfile and file_getfh, which are, apparently, used only in nfsd. Having noticed your name as the author of the some of the files dealing with file handles in nfsd, I'm directing the following questions to you.
1. No libnetfs translator supports either fsys_getfile or file_getfh, which removes the possibility of a libnetfs translator being supported by nfsd. Was it intended? 2. Is it possible to implement nfsd without appealing to file handles? This might widen the use-case set for nfsd. If you are not the right person to ask these questions, could you please suggest someone to whom I could better address my request? Regards, scolobb
