RFS: Answer to common question about installability

[Todd Brunhoff]

I have gotten many questions about installability of RFS (Remote
File System).  Here are the most common:

...is it easy to install on the various derivatives of 4.2 or 4.3?

The modifications to the standard kernel are very small.  The following
kernel files change:

	h/errno.h		(3 new errno's)
	h/param.h		(new define for # of remote mount points)
	h/user.h		(3 elements added to the user structure)
	machine/trap.c		(a change to the syscall interface)
	sys/init_sysent.c	(3 new system calls added)
	sys/kern_exec.c		(execution of remote files added ~75 lines)
	sys/kern_exit.c		(clean up remote stuff on exit ~4 lines)
	sys/ufs_nami.c		(detect a remote file ~25 lines)
	sys/ufs_syscalls.c	(catch a special remote chdir() ~12 lines)

Except for sys/kern_exec.c, the changes are between 5 and 25 lines of
code, comments or #ifdef directives, all of it ifdef'ed under
REMOTEFS.  The remainder of the RFS source is kept in 11 new kernel
source files which live in /sys/remote.  On vanilla 4.2, 4.3 and
Pyramid source, the automatic shell scripts install the changes, the
new kernel source files and set up for a compile in about 10-20
minutes.  The rest is compile time.

...will it port to SysV?

Not without alot of work.  RFS depends very heavily on 4.2/4.3 mbuf
structures and depends a little on kernel-level sockets.  If you
can come up with a substitute for these, then I think it would port
just fine.

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