HP-UX Reference (11i v2 07/12) - 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 supported
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 argu-
ments, 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
HP-UX 11i Version 2: December 2007 Update − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company 269