[9fans] Do we have a catalog of 9P servers?

* Anant Narayanan <anant@kix.in> wrote:
[color=blue]
> I must say that it is highly unlikely that Mozilla will adopt the path
> of splitting the "monolithic app into a bunch of fileservers" simply
> because that would involve a lot work, and potentially a lot code to
> be written from scratch.[/color]

Well, let's see. I'll try to use the current discussions to push 9P in.
Mozilla folks aren't very open to innovation (no matter how old/mature
this innovation already is), but at least I've still got some hope ;)

Of course this will take a while, but it can be done.
(give me, lets say, 10 good devs for about half a year, and I'll
show you ;-P)

I don't want a completely modularized / splitted Mozilla (not yet),
moving out things like web access (-> webfs), profile handling (so many
separate instances can run simultaniously), plugins (webfs, rio, ...)
would alreay be a HUGE advantage.

Everyone of you can help by just advocating 9P and demonstrating
what it can do :)


cu
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- [url]http://www.metux.de/[/url]

cellphone: +49 174 7066481 email: [email]info@metux.de[/email] skype: nekrad666
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Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
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* sqweek <sqweek@gmail.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 2:50 PM, Enrico Weigelt <weigelt@metux.de> wrote:[color=green]
> > * Steve Simon <steve@quintile.net> wrote:
> >[color=darkred]
> >> How about if you start a page with a list of the 9p
> >> file servers you know of, say on the plan9 wiki, and
> >> then email 9fans asking them to add any that you have
> >> missed?[/color]
> >
> > If I had write access, I'd just did it ;-o[/color]
>
> Everyone has write access to the plan 9 wiki.[/color]

hmm, perhaps I didn't look hard enough, but I didn't see anything
like an "edit" button etc ... ;-o
[color=blue]
> [url]http://9p.cat-v.org[/url] is halfway there, makes more sense to improve
> that than start a new site. Get in touch with Uriel if you want
> something on there that isn't already there, or if you want to make
> his life easy you can send a patch to the document source. You can get
> the source by appending .md to the url (eg
> [url]http://9p.cat-v.org/implementations.md[/url] or [url]http://9p.cat-v.org/index.md[/url]
> ) - they are written in markdown[1] syntax. Also he has something in
> the works to enable editing via http, which I believe is implemented
> but needs testing...[/color]

Okay, I'll get back to it in a few days. But this site clearly has
a big bottleg when it comes to collaboration, because Uriel has to
maintain that all.

I'd really like to get the whole 9P topic to very broad audience.
My suggested site isn't actually for us, who are on this list, but
those who aren't, those wo probably hear about 9P the first time.
So we IMHO should learn from all the big "community" projects how
to attract people and get them involved with minimal effort. It's
not for us, it's for them ...
(a psychological, not a technical decision).


cu
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- [url]http://www.metux.de/[/url]

cellphone: +49 174 7066481 email: [email]info@metux.de[/email] skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 6:26 AM, Enrico Weigelt <weigelt@metux.de> wrote:[color=blue]
> * sqweek <sqweek@gmail.com> wrote:[color=green]
>> Everyone has write access to the plan 9 wiki.[/color]
>
> hmm, perhaps I didn't look hard enough, but I didn't see anything
> like an "edit" button etc ... ;-o[/color]

Put in Acme Wiki.

>So we IMHO should learn from all the big "community" projects how[color=blue]
>to attract people and get them involved with minimal effort. It's
>not for us, it's for them ...[/color]

i know, but have you spoken to the auther of the comment below:
[color=blue]
>Mozilla folks aren't very open to innovation (no matter how old/mature
>this innovation already is), but at least I've still got some hope ;)[/color]

hey! it was you!

that's more my experience with Apache and Perl, so far,
and not even for `innovation', just getting their stuff going on Windows.

On Sat, 2008-11-08 at 06:47 -0500, erik quanstrom wrote:[color=blue][color=green]
> > Sure. But that would an argument in favor of the Plan 9/Inferno
> > kernel architecture, not the protocol itself. Nobody's denying
> > that 9P is a perfect match to that kind of kernel architecture.
> > What I'm trying to find out is whether the protocol could stand
> > its own ground even if Plan9 kernel is not serving nor muxing it.[/color]
>
> this depends entirely on your criteria and constraints.[/color]

Ok, here's a stab at describing my requirement: imagine a situation
where you need to make access to a large variety of existing external
resources (and I really do mean *variety*) be:
1. transparent to the users
2. independent of the user's environment
3. independent of the location of the users
4. independent of the user's ability to *explicitly* do networking

Most of these existing external resources are already shared using
protocols quite different from 9P. Worse yet, the servers serving
them are not under our control. Thus making them speak 9P at the
end point of a server is not an option.

Now, at this point, one might wonder why not use FUSE and import these
resources directly at the client end-point? The answer is quite simple:
because of MS Windows (#2) and because of the potential inability
to dial out (#4) on demand.

Thanks,
Roman.

P.S. On a similar note I'd like to add that the requirement outlined
above seem to be quite typical in today's world. See, on one hand new
kind of resources (take flickr or youtube as an example) are very
unlikely to be shared using 9P, unless WE can argue that 9P is somehow
radically better (saves bandwidth, etc.) for the resource *maintainer*.
Not an impossible thing to articulate (as some of the responses I've
got to my earlier question indicated -- thank you guys!) but a difficult
one. Why? Well, because the next question you get from the maintainers
is: who can import our resources using 9P on the client side?

I wish 9p:// URL worked out of the box in Firefox, but it doesn't. It is
also not supported by JDK & C#. And even we we stick with the "resources
as regular files" approach on the client you're stuck with mostly POSIX
environment + locking (+caching). POSIX means symlink(2) and mknod(2)
(and locking/caching means a lot of pain and mental masturbation).
Last time I checked, we didn't have consensus on how things like these
are supposed to be handled by 9P.

And finally -- it is ok to say: "they are not supposed to". If that's
our collective answer, that also answers my earlier question -- 9P as
it stands is useless in a situation like I'm in.

On 10-Nov-08, at 10:56 PM, Roman V. Shaposhnik wrote:[color=blue]
> I wish 9p:// URL worked out of the box in Firefox, but it doesn't.[/color]

Shameless plug:
It does if you install the Angled extension: [url]http://www.kix.in/projects/web9/[/url]
Ok, I lied - ninep:// works, 9p:// doesn't :)

--
Anant

On Mon, 2008-11-10 at 15:17 +0900, sqweek wrote:[color=blue]
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 2:50 PM, Enrico Weigelt <weigelt@metux.de> wrote:[color=green]
> > * Steve Simon <steve@quintile.net> wrote:
> >[color=darkred]
> >> How about if you start a page with a list of the 9p
> >> file servers you know of, say on the plan9 wiki, and
> >> then email 9fans asking them to add any that you have
> >> missed?[/color]
> >
> > If I had write access, I'd just did it ;-o[/color]
>
> Everyone has write access to the plan 9 wiki.[/color]

plan 9 wiki is a very good suggestion. I would like to start
such a topic there. I do have 2 questions though:
1. It doesn't seem to allow anonymous edits:
I tried:
[url]http://netlib.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/sandbox/edit.html[/url]
and all I got was:
[url]http://netlib.bell-labs.com/magic/wikipost[/url]
Object not found
The object does not exist on this server.

errstr: '/bin/ip/httpd/wikipost' does not exist
uri host:
header host:
actual host: plan9.bell-labs.com
Direct edits from my Acme also don't seem to work.

2. When/if it works what would be the appropriate place
to stick that topic into?
[color=blue][color=green]
> > Meanwhile I've just added my 9P libs (libmixp, libmixpsrv)
> > to the 9P page @ wikipedia - probably a good starting point, too.
> >
> > But if we're talking about 9P/Styx in general (not specifically
> > on Plan9 or Inferno), it might be wise to set up a sepate website.
> > This site should also contain information on topics like what 9P
> > is really good for and why application developers should use it :)
> >
> > Just let me know if you'd like to feed some input to such a site,
> > and I'll set up one.[/color]
>
> [url]http://9p.cat-v.org[/url] is halfway there, makes more sense to improve
> that than start a new site.[/color]

Agreed. In fact, halfway is a very accurate description ;-) It already
has [url]http://9p.cat-v.org/implementations[/url], but it still lacks what I
would call a "servers" page.
[color=blue]
> Get in touch with Uriel if you want something on there that isn't already there,[/color]

That would be [url]http://9p.cat-v.org/servers[/url] linked from his Left-hand-side
menu. Speaking of getting in touch with Uriel -- is he not subscribed
to this list? ;-) Or well, I'll CC him ;-)
[color=blue]
> or if you want to make
> his life easy you can send a patch to the document source. You can get
> the source by appending .md to the url (eg
> [url]http://9p.cat-v.org/implementations.md[/url] or [url]http://9p.cat-v.org/index.md[/url]
> ) - they are written in markdown[1] syntax. Also he has something in
> the works to enable editing via http, which I believe is implemented
> but needs testing...[/color]

Thanks for the .md suggestion. One thing that I clearly see missing on
the implementations page is the Java implementation done at LSUB.

Thanks,
Roman.

On Sun, 2008-11-09 at 11:26 +0000, Steve Simon wrote:[color=blue]
> How about if you start a page with a list of the 9p
> file servers you know of, say on the plan9 wiki, and
> then email 9fans asking them to add any that you have
> missed?[/color]

That's the plan!
[color=blue]
> I can see how such a thing might be a useful resource
> to people on the list as well as a promotional tool.
> It could also (perhaps) focus attention of those with
> time and interest towards the best ones to tackle next.[/color]

I can do whatever cataloging is necessary, that's not a
problem.

Describing the applications and limitations of 9P on the
other hand, feels like something that would belong to:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9P[/url]
and I would really feel much more comfortable if some of
the "founding fathers" can take a stab at it first.

Thanks,
Roman.

P.S. Or am I not appreciating the collaborative nature of the
Wikipedia? :-)

>And even we we stick with the "resources[color=blue]
>as regular files" approach on the client you're stuck with mostly POSIX
>environment + locking (+caching). POSIX means symlink(2) and mknod(2)[/color]

no, because (unless i've misunderstood) they are accessing resources
(as regular files) on a remote server, and symbolic links and
outdated major/minor are irrelevant and not needed.

On Mon, 2008-11-10 at 23:38 +0000, C H Forsyth wrote:[color=blue][color=green]
> >And even we we stick with the "resources
> >as regular files" approach on the client you're stuck with mostly POSIX
> >environment + locking (+caching). POSIX means symlink(2) and mknod(2)[/color]
>
> no, because (unless i've misunderstood) they are accessing resources
> (as regular files) on a remote server, and symbolic links and
> outdated major/minor are irrelevant and not needed.[/color]

Agreed. That's why I didn't include this bit in the main set of
requirements.

But wouldn't you agree that files kept on a remote POSIX file system is
an important and common class of remotes resources for which we don't
quite have a consensus on how to use 9P?

We have at least three different attempts at solving that: 9P2000.u,
Skip's Text/Rext and a "parallel tree" approach, but no consensus(*)

Thanks,
Roman.

>But wouldn't you agree that files kept on a remote POSIX file system is[color=blue]
>an important and common class of remotes resources for which we don't
>quite have a consensus on how to use 9P?[/color]

yes, but both your examples are things of purely local significance.
the symbolic links point to something local (or not), and the major/minor
numbers are decidedly only local (since they index a kernel's data structures!).
so: access the things they refer to.
sorry, to which they refer.

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Roman V. Shaposhnik <rvs@sun.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> We have at least three different attempts at solving that: 9P2000.u,
> Skip's Text/Rext and a "parallel tree" approach, but no consensus(*)
>[/color]

four. My original v9fs added 3 ops for supporting symlinks and
hardlinks. There was no option.

ron

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 6:19 PM, ron minnich <rminnich@gmail.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 3:45 PM, Roman V. Shaposhnik <rvs@sun.com> wrote:
>[color=green]
>> We have at least three different attempts at solving that: 9P2000.u,
>> Skip's Text/Rext and a "parallel tree" approach, but no consensus(*)
>>[/color]
>
> four. My original v9fs added 3 ops for supporting symlinks and
> hardlinks. There was no option.
>[/color]

Soon to be 5. 9P.L coming soon to the dismay of Uriels everywhere...

-eric

On Tue, 2008-11-11 at 00:14 +0000, Charles Forsyth wrote:[color=blue][color=green]
> >But wouldn't you agree that files kept on a remote POSIX file system is
> >an important and common class of remotes resources for which we don't
> >quite have a consensus on how to use 9P?[/color]
>
> yes, but both your examples are things of purely local significance.[/color]

Sorry I'm confused, which examples are you talking about? Anyway, for
the sake of this conversation lets focus on: using 9P as the means to
access files on a remote POSIX filesystem.
[color=blue]
> the symbolic links point to something local (or not), and the major/minor
> numbers are decidedly only local (since they index a kernel's data structures!).
> sorry, to which they refer.[/color]

This approach seems to be flawed on two accounts:
1. it forces the server to resolve symlinks and special
nodes, without an option for the client to do the same.
That prevents cross-tree symlinks and nodes as the
points of rendezvous *on the client*. IOW, the following
will not work:
$ mknod <imported FS>/test p
$ echo test >> <imported FS>/test &
cat <imported FS>/test
I can buy a point of view that reading on a node that happens
to be a character device should really bring the data from
the remote server's device attached to that node. However,
that point of view is much more difficult to sell for
FIFOs.

2. It doesn't let manipulate these special files. IOW,
readlink(2) fails and so does mknod(2)/symlink(2).

For the practical application of 9P a failing symlink(2) is a big
source of problems.

In fact, "why does my build fail" was the first question that people
asked me once I demonstrated my prototype of drawterm written in
Java. It fails because it tries to symlink within a tree that
is exported.

Thanks,
Roman.

Why does your build fail? Lack of vision to the extreme resulting in a
completely horrible way of building things that has grew and grew to
something that not even its mother could not love.

In some sense it's good that it fails. If you want to build things
that way then don't use plan9. Seriously. The simplest program is now
entangled in the most horrendous config/build mess. Why? Because
that's how you do things. No!!!

"Hideous, horrible!" - as a friend at the Labs would shout (not about
CS, he was a physicist).

As for mknod, I don't think it's worth trying to keep that alive, let
alone breaking plan9 to do it.

brucee

On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 3:00 AM, Roman V. Shaposhnik <rvs@sun.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> On Tue, 2008-11-11 at 00:14 +0000, Charles Forsyth wrote:[color=green][color=darkred]
>> >But wouldn't you agree that files kept on a remote POSIX file system is
>> >an important and common class of remotes resources for which we don't
>> >quite have a consensus on how to use 9P?[/color]
>>
>> yes, but both your examples are things of purely local significance.[/color]
>
> Sorry I'm confused, which examples are you talking about? Anyway, for
> the sake of this conversation lets focus on: using 9P as the means to
> access files on a remote POSIX filesystem.
>[color=green]
>> the symbolic links point to something local (or not), and the major/minor
>> numbers are decidedly only local (since they index a kernel's data structures!).
>> sorry, to which they refer.[/color]
>
> This approach seems to be flawed on two accounts:
> 1. it forces the server to resolve symlinks and special
> nodes, without an option for the client to do the same.
> That prevents cross-tree symlinks and nodes as the
> points of rendezvous *on the client*. IOW, the following
> will not work:
> $ mknod <imported FS>/test p
> $ echo test >> <imported FS>/test &
> cat <imported FS>/test
> I can buy a point of view that reading on a node that happens
> to be a character device should really bring the data from
> the remote server's device attached to that node. However,
> that point of view is much more difficult to sell for
> FIFOs.
>
> 2. It doesn't let manipulate these special files. IOW,
> readlink(2) fails and so does mknod(2)/symlink(2).
>
> For the practical application of 9P a failing symlink(2) is a big
> source of problems.
>
> In fact, "why does my build fail" was the first question that people
> asked me once I demonstrated my prototype of drawterm written in
> Java. It fails because it tries to symlink within a tree that
> is exported.
>
> Thanks,
> Roman.
>
>
>[/color]

* Roman V. Shaposhnik <rvs@sun.com> wrote:
[color=blue]
> P.S. On a similar note I'd like to add that the requirement outlined
> above seem to be quite typical in today's world. See, on one hand new
> kind of resources (take flickr or youtube as an example) are very[/color]

Actually, I've got flickr-9P on my 2do-list (but still lacking time
for it yet). And my media hosting platform will also get an 9P interface.
[color=blue]
> Not an impossible thing to articulate (as some of the responses I've
> got to my earlier question indicated -- thank you guys!) but a difficult
> one. Why? Well, because the next question you get from the maintainers
> is: who can import our resources using 9P on the client side?[/color]

Perhaps someone should sit down and write an win32 driver for it ;-)
Linux has 9P support, BSD too (IMHO). And also some common userland
apps like Midnight Commander (not in mainline yet, but that's coming).
[color=blue]
> I wish 9p:// URL worked out of the box in Firefox, but it doesn't.[/color]

I've did some pieces for Seamonkey. (but not stable yet).
[color=blue]
> It is also not supported by JDK & C#.[/color]

That's under way, feel free to jump on the train :)
Maybe, once I've got jmixp up and running, I'll port it to flex ;-o


cu
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- [url]http://www.metux.de/[/url]

cellphone: +49 174 7066481 email: [email]info@metux.de[/email] skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

* Charles Forsyth <forsyth@terzarima.net> wrote:[color=blue][color=green]
> >So we IMHO should learn from all the big "community" projects how
> >to attract people and get them involved with minimal effort. It's
> >not for us, it's for them ...[/color]
>
> i know, but have you spoken to the auther of the comment below:
>[color=green]
> >Mozilla folks aren't very open to innovation (no matter how old/mature
> >this innovation already is), but at least I've still got some hope ;)[/color]
>
> hey! it was you![/color]

I didn't say we should learn from Mozilla ... ;-o
[color=blue]
> that's more my experience with Apache and Perl, so far,
> and not even for `innovation', just getting their stuff going
> on Windows.[/color]

Yeah, they're even incapable of writing clean makefiles ;-o


cu
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- [url]http://www.metux.de/[/url]

cellphone: +49 174 7066481 email: [email]info@metux.de[/email] skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

> Actually, I've got flickr-9P on my 2do-list [ ... ]

Is there any hope of re-winding the clock back to some time pre-
September?

* Robert Raschke <rtrlists@googlemail.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 6:26 AM, Enrico Weigelt <weigelt@metux.de> wrote:[color=green]
> > * sqweek <sqweek@gmail.com> wrote:[color=darkred]
> >> Everyone has write access to the plan 9 wiki.[/color]
> >
> > hmm, perhaps I didn't look hard enough, but I didn't see anything
> > like an "edit" button etc ... ;-o[/color]
>
> Put in Acme Wiki.[/color]

Just curious: does this also work w/ p9p (don't have native Plan9
running) ? What exactly do I have to type in ?


thx
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Enrico Weigelt, metux IT service -- [url]http://www.metux.de/[/url]

cellphone: +49 174 7066481 email: [email]info@metux.de[/email] skype: nekrad666
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Embedded-Linux / Portierung / Opensource-QM / Verteilte Systeme
----------------------------------------------------------------------

On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 11:40 AM, Enrico Weigelt <weigelt@metux.de> wrote:[color=blue]
> * Robert Raschke <rtrlists@googlemail.com> wrote:[color=green]
>> On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 6:26 AM, Enrico Weigelt <weigelt@metux.de> wrote:[color=darkred]
>> > * sqweek <sqweek@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Everyone has write access to the plan 9 wiki.
>> >
>> > hmm, perhaps I didn't look hard enough, but I didn't see anything
>> > like an "edit" button etc ... ;-o[/color]
>>
>> Put in Acme Wiki.[/color]
>
> Just curious: does this also work w/ p9p (don't have native Plan9
> running) ? What exactly do I have to type in ?[/color]

Nope, it's not included with p9p. Might be in 9vx, but I haven't
checked. You can still mount the wiki of course, but I couldn't tell
you how to edit it without the acme interface.
[url]http://netlib.bell-labs.com/magic/man2html/4/wikifs[/url] probably can. See
[url]http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/rc/bin/9fs[/url] and
[url]http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/lib/ndb/common[/url] for the rest
of the puzzle.
-sqweek