Translucent File Service

[Jerry Liebelson]

>Has anyone tried to use the Translucent File System (TFS) on SUN 4.1.1???

Yes, we are using the TFS without any major hitch. There are, once in a
while, some peculiar problems and warning messages but nothing serious.

Yes, Sun's handling of the documentation for TFS is indeed, very
disappointing, especially since Sun created TFS.

This is what you do to get it running:

1. Add the following line to /etc/inetd.conf (no change needed to
   /etc/services):

        tfsd/1-2        dgram   rpc/udp wait root /usr/etc/tfsd tfsd

2. Reboot 

3. Become root and use the mount_tfs command to set up your TFS directory.
   For example, given 3 directories, /home/me/work, /home/common,
   /home/me/save,

the following command   

    mount_tfs /home/me/save /home/common /home/me/work

will make /home/me/work a TFS directory in which you stay and do your
work, while having any files you create or modify stored in /home/me/save,
and at the same time having access to any files in /home/common that are
not otherwise in /home/me/save.

You can specify additional directories if you desire. But the first in the
list will always be the place where new or modified files will be actually
kept. And the last path in the list will always be the TFS directory
itself, which acts as a active work area and window into the other
"stacked" directories. Nothing is ever stored in the TFS directory itself.
Like regular nfs mounts, whatever was in the TFS directory before you run
the mount_tfs command, remains hidden.

4. You'll probably want to keep a file (/etc/tfs.rc is a good name)
   containing your tfs mount commands and modify your /etc/rc.local file to
   include something like this

   echo "Deferring tfs mounts till inetd process kicks in..."
   (if [ -f /etc/tfs.rc ]; then while :; do if [ "`ps -ax | fgrep inetd | sed '/fgrep inetd/d' `" = "" ]; then sleep 10; else /etc/tfs.rc;exit; fi;done;fi;) >/dev/null &

Since the tfs daemon is started by inetd you need to wait until inetd
starts running before you do a mount_tfs.  It may in fact, not be
necessary to start tfsd via inetd. But that's the way I learned it and
haven't bothered to experiment.

** Basically, TFS is a pretty good thing. In a development environment, it
   greatly facilitates the coordination of unit-test, and integration-test
   areas.  One big drawback is the need to be superuser to mount the
   directory.  Nevertheless, I hope Sun continues to support it, which is
   always wishful thinking.

         Jerry Liebelson                   uunet!slcpi!slhisc!jerry   
    Distributed Infrastructure             (212) 341-3166  FAX: (212) 528-0101
   Shearson Lehman Brothers, Inc.