lab 86 - srv

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lab 86 - srv

NOTES

This from a post on 9fans, and also on Tip O' the Day 

% dc >[0=1] | echo 0 > /srv/desk

Plan 9's srv(3) acts as a bulletin board for open file descriptors, other namespaces see all the files in srv, and so can read and write to /srv/desk.

Inferno has srv(3) which is a file2chan registry, but is also visible to all namespaces on the host. (see also srv9(3))

The current implementation of sh-file2chan(1) does not allow the above. The closest I got was, 

% load file2chan
% calc >[0=1] | {file2chan /chan/desk {rblock; putrdata &} {fetchwdata > /fd/0}} &

% stream -b 1 /chan/desk
% echo 1+1 > /chan/desk

I tried implementing a command equivalent to srv(4) on Plan 9. It takes a command block or network address and post it in the srv registry. 

% srv {calc >[1=0]}  /chan/desk

It using an existing '#s' instance if there is one, else binds a new one. Now we can open a console to /chan/desk from another window 

% {cat & cat  >[1=0] < /dev/cons} <> /chan/desk

and other windows can write to /chan/desk, the output will be seen in the console.

Questions.

  1. Why isn't Plan 9 srv(3) in Inferno?
  2. File2chan(2) seems under used. Is that because of the shell interface sh-file2chan?
  3. Is there another interface that would make file2chan more usable?
  4. Mount(1) supports mounting from a file, as Plan 9's does. But the inferno srv(3) device must do extra copies of the read and write buffers to implement the interface. Is the file interface of Plan9 srv more elegant than the extra file2chan syscall in Inferno?
  5. Aren't there benefits to using channels in Inferno that make file2chan preferable?

Files in this lab are for the inferno srv(4) implementation.

FILES

lab 86 code

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