Original query:
> Subject: Named Pipes & networking?
> Named pipes are supported by some network file systems (i.e. Microsoft's Lan
> Manager), but I have never heard of anybody using them in the Unix world.
> SunOS supports named pipes on 4.2 filesystems, but when a named pipe is
> exported or imported with NFS, it seems to be handled locally on all systems.
> Thus, NFS seems to not support the notion of named pipes.
> Do other network file systems support named pipes, or am I whistling in the
> dark if I hope to use named pipes as a means of intermachine communication?
The six responses:
From: ulysses.att.com!smb
> They're used heavily in 9th and 10th edition. Ritchie and Presotto
> have a paper coming out in Software: Practice and Experience.
From: Edward Vielmetti <math.lsa.umich.edu!emv>
> I think that the AT&T RFS (remote file system) which comes with
> 4.1 SunOS supports named pipes across systems. Bets are that
> performance isn't going to be the strongpoint of that arrangemetns.
> --Ed
From: umiacs.UMD.EDU!steve (Steve D. Miller)
> I'm not sure that named pipes are the world's best way to do intermachine
> communication, but it's within the realm of possibility that named pipes
> might work between machines using the SunOS 4.1 RFS support. I haven't
> ever used (or read much about) RFS, so I could be wrong...
From: uunet.UU.NET!auspex!guy (Guy Harris)
> "Named pipes" is one of those terms that refers to several unrelated
> items.
> UNIX had something that it called "named pipes" before LAN Manager ever
> existed; they were, literally, just pipes that had names. Back at least
> as far as V6, pipes were implemented as "funny" files with no links to
> them; in S3 or so, they just tweaked the implementation a bit and
> allowed you to have links to them.
>
> > ... Pipes seem to be handled locally on all systems.
> > Thus, NFS seems to not support the notion of named pipes.
>
> Correct.
>
> > Do other network file systems support named pipes, or am I whistling in the
> > dark if I hope to use named pipes as a means of intermachine communication?
>
> They work over RFS in S5R3, and should do so in SunOS 4.1 as well.
>
> They are, of course, still completely unrelated to LAN Manager named
> pipes. If you want *those*, I think people are developing LAN Manager
> server software for UNIX; dunno about client software.
From: david@elroy.uucp (David Robinson)
> Named pipes and other special devices such as character and block devices
> are handled by the local machine, not the server. This is by design
> and is considered a feature. You cannot use it as intermachine communication.
> Typically the way special devices are implemented in the kernel, the
> filesystem is used only to hold the name, not the data itself that is
> buffered in the kernel. So the remote machine never sees the data put
> in the pipe, it stays in the local kernel.
> -David
From: arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de!lehners (English mine)
> Munix/Net does this.
> Unfortunately, Munix/Net is a proprietary network file system
> which is an optional add-on to the Munix OS from PCS in Germany,
> makers of the 'Cadmus' line of Unix machines.
> Munix/Net is, unlike NFS, a stateful protocol based on the IP protocol suite.
> Access to remote pipes is a consequence of the fact that Munix/Net lets
> you access remote files and devices in general, with pathnames of the
> form /../hostname/dev/rst0 (to access a tape drive on a remote host).
> It also has a network-wide idea of userids, so YP is not required.
> Joerg Lehners
Thanks to all who responded, it was interesting.
- Dan Kegel (dank@moc.jpl.nasa.gov)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Sep 28 2001 - 23:05:57 CDT