Re: File dialogs: Network access

[Dylan Griffiths <Dylan_G bigfoot com>]

"Michael T. Babcock" wrote:
> 
> I think this is what you're saying, but to be more specific: The kernel
> should not be given the task of handling something so inherently high-level
> as abstracting an Internet protocol into a filesystem namespace.  There are
> 'right ways' to do this.  If nothing else, the kernel could be given a
> (better) vfs api and have user-space software interact with those to provide
> the extensions.  This would then make it possible to do (as with Samba
> mounting):
> 
> mount -t vftp 'ftp2.3dgamers.com/pub/mirrors' /mnt/3dgamers-mirrors/

That's what I've tried to explain several times.

The kernel should only export hooks.

>From there, we have a userland daemon with the proper permissions to use
those hooks.

>From there, the daemon could have its own /etc/ftpmount config with info on
what to mount, when to mount, what user name and password, etc!

This way we have the kernel know about all these as one file tree, and we
see that file tree in every application without any changes to userland
(except the daemon, of course :)).

This is precisely how userland NFS works.  I'm just saying we expand it for
other kinds of protocols, since this is obviously not an in-kernel issue,
and there's no better way to get the Unix directory tree consistent across
every application, even the closed-source ones.
 
> Actually accessing ftp:// and http:// files from the get-go?  That is
> interesting, but I think then we have to have Linux change how it handles
> its single hierarchy filesystem into something more like UNC or URIs.  I
> don't know if that's the 'right thing' or not, but its definately a
> fundamental change in how the filesystem is organised on Unix.
> 

Yes, which is why I prefer we just have hooks available to userland for a
daemon to play with at the behest of a user.  We solve all these problems in
one fell swoop.  For things like meta-data, though, I'm a bit more partial
to the "gnome-vfs" since Gnome apps are likely the only applications
interested in the meta-data, and we'll probably be rewriting them anyway to
take advantage of the metadata.

But things like FTP, or other network transports used for file sharing,
should be done via kernel VFS hooks (IMO) :)

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