HP-UX Reference (11i v2 04/09) - 4 File Formats (vol 8)

p
pfs(4) pfs(4)
(OBSOLETED)
NAME
pfs, PFS - portable file system
DESCRIPTION
The Portable File System, or PFS, allows access to a variety of CD-ROM file systems. Currently sup-
ported file systems include:
iso9660,
high sierra, RockRidge Interchange.
The PFS package consists of 7 programs:
pfs_mountd is responsible for maintaining local and remote mounts. It must be running
on both PFS clients and PFS servers. The
pfs_mountd program validates
arguments, and spawns
pfs_mountd.rpc
.
pfs_mountd.rpc
is the RPC server code associated with pfs_mountd. It should not be exe-
cuted directly.
pfsd responds to all client requests for a given mounted CD-ROM file system.
pfsd needs to be running on all systems designated as PFS servers.
pfsd
validates arguments, and spawns pfsd.rpc.
pfsd.rpc is the RPC server code associated with
pfsd. It should not be executed
directly.
pfs_exportfs makes local directories available for mounting by PFS clients.
pfs_mount mounts CD-ROM file system locally or from server.
pfs_umount unmounts CD-ROM file system locally or from server.
Client file access calls are converted to PFS protocol requests, and are sent to the server system over the
network. The server receives the request, performs the actual file system operation, and sends a response
back to the client.
The Portable File System operates in a stateful fashion using remote procedure (RPC - rfc1057) calls built
on top of external data representation (XDR - rfc1014) protocol. The RPC protocol provides for version
and authentication parameters to be exchanged for security over the network.
A server can grant access to a specific filesystem to certain clients by adding an entry for that filesystem
to the server’s
/etc/pfs_exports
file and running pfs_exportfs (1M).
A client gains access to that filesystem with the
pfs_mount command. Once the filesystem is mounted
by the client, the server issues a file handle to the client for each file (or directory) the client accesses or
creates. If the disc is unmounted at the server, the file handles becomes stale, and remote requests will
return stale file handle messages.
A server may also be a client with respect to filesystems it has mounted over the network, but its clients
cannot gain access to those filesystems. Instead, the client must mount a filesystem directly from the
server on which it resides.
ERRORS
Generally physical disk I/O errors detected at the server are returned to the client for action. If the
server is down or inaccessible, the client will see the message:
PFS server host not responding, retrying...
It will retry 4 times, and then finally return failure.
WARNINGS
PFS is obsolete and no longer supported on any HP-UX release. Delivery of PFS interfaces will be discon-
tinued in the next HP-UX release.
PFS, from Young Minds, Inc. (now defunct), was originally adopted by HP to provide accessibility to Rock
Ridge Interchange file system format on iso9660 CD-ROM file systems. The equivalent functionality is
now provided via the HP-UX CDFS file system type and HP-UX’s standard file systems commands.
PFS has known functionality and performance problems. HP customers are urged to stop using the PFS
interfaces, and move to accessing all CD-ROM file system formats by using the standard HP-UX com-
mands, specifying the file system type as
cdfs. For example, to mount a CD-ROM file system, use:
mount -F cdfs /dev/dsk/c0t0d4 /cdrom
There is no need to treat the cdfs file system type differently from any other file system type; therefore, no
special daemons or commands are required to access the variety of CD-ROM file system formats.
HP-UX 11i Version 2: September 2004 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company Section 4−−239