Re: [9fans] Network design question

[vdharani@infernopark.com]

> - from the OSI point of view, the layers 4, 5 and 6 have a custom
> protocol implementation: 9P.
9p is similar to nfs protocol. the main difference is nfs is designed to
serve regular data files and so it treats data in terms of blocks. 9p
additionally takes care of device files and the data is treated as
messages of variable size (max is 8192). and 9p messages are not cached.

> - 9P offers an interface at layer 5 (messages, local)
>
> - 9P offers an interface at layer 6 (RPC, local)
i am not sure if 9p can be treated like this. i guess it is pretty much
the 4 layer tcp/ip with 9p sitting on top of tcp/ip. 9p is like nfs
protocol and uses rpc mechanism.

> - a service does translation from 9P to TCP for external communication
> (at level 4?).
>
> Where does IL fit in all this?
il is pretty much similar to tcp except that while tcp works in
byte-stream mode, il wrok in message-mode.

thanks
dharani