95 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
95 lines
4.2 KiB
Plaintext
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An Alpha release of version 5 of the Prospero file system is now
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available by anonymous FTP from PROSPERO.ISI.EDU in the file
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pub/prospero/prospero.tar.Z (840 blocks). It can also be obtained
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through Prospero itself from /releases/prospero/prospero.tar.Z
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The most important change since the last major release is that the
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protocol has been significantly revised. Quoting, a feature that the
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previous version of the protocol mentioned but which was never
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implemented, is now fully supported. This means that filenames and
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object names with spaces and other strange characters in their names
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now work. This is important, since Prospero is being increasingly used to
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index and organize other types of data than UNIX files. The server
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will still speak the older version of the protocol to older clients.
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Other significant changes since the last major release include the
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following
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. The code is now in ANSI C.
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. Remote modification and retrieval of attributes on links and files
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is now fully supported. Attributes have changed significantly.
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You can modify attributes through the new set_atr client program or
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through the pset_at() and pset_linkat() library routines.
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Attributes that happen to be stored on the VLINK structure (such as
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the link name) are now treated the same as all other attributes and
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can be modified with the same commands used to modify other
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attributes.
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. The MAGIC-NUMBER mechanism has been generalized into an ID
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mechanism. This allows Prospero to be used to experiment with
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unique document identifiers (currently the subject of an IETF
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working group).
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. The ACCESS-METHOD attribute has been generalized. It no longer
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assumes that the host providing directory information about an
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object is the same host from which the object should be retrieved.
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. Support for the GOPHER access method (at the moment, only on
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EXTERNAL links) is now included. This means that objects of
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interest you discover through Gopher can be added to the Prospeo
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namespace.
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. Filters have been generalized considerably. This release includes
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support for PREDEFINED filters that run on the server side. Such
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filters solve the security and portability problems that have
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plagued filters in the past. A later release will come with a
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number of predefined standard server and client filters.
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. Various bug fixes and fixes for some machine dependencies
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. Additional features in the Asynchronous Reliable Delivery Protocol
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(ARDP; formerly the Reliable Datagram Protocol) that support new
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features in the archie server and client, such as the ability for a
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client to ask for how long it must wait until its query will be
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serviced, and the ability to cancel pending requests. The ARDP
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library is now a separate component from the rest of prospero, and
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we encourage developers to use it in their applications.
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. Kerberos Version 5 is now available as an authentication mechanism.
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. It is now possible for the same binaries to support users running C
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shell variants and Bourne shell variants.
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. The server now can provide a message of the day, and the client
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libraries provide support for retrieving it.
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. The protocol manual has been considerably expanded and improved.
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. Introduced in the last beta release and still present: a
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standalone client to query archie servers, and an alternative ls
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program (ALS).
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The release has been tested on Suns running SunOS, DEC MIPS machines
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running ULTRIX, and HP 9000 series 700 workstations running HP-UX.
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Please report bugs to bug-prospero@ISI.EDU
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We would like to thank the following people for bug fixes, for porting
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Prospero to other machine types (and feeding back the changes), or for
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adding new features.
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Eric Anderson SURAnet
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Joseph Boykin Encore Computer Corporation
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Steve Cliffe University of Wollongong
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John Curran NSF Network Service Center (NNSC)
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Alan Emtage Bunyip Information Systems
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George Ferguson Univeristy of Rochester
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Jonathan Kamens MIT Project Athena
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Brendan Kehoe Cygnus
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Case Larsen Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
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Gaute Nessan University of Tromsoe, Norway
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Rainer Orth University of Cologne, Germany
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-- Clifford Neuman and Steven Augart
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