Re: [9fans] HTTP tunnelling of 9P -- taboo?

Re: [9fans] HTTP tunnelling of 9P -- taboo?

[Geoff Collyer]

I get the impression that some people feel that http may soon be the
only protocol allowed through corporate firewalls, with companies
becoming more paranoid and implementing reverse firewalls (such as the
Great Firewall of China).

Re: [9fans] HTTP tunnelling of 9P -- taboo?

[a]

the aesthetic question is easiest: good God please no! tunneling
*anything* through http is ugly, since http itself is ugly. and
taking a nice, clean, simple, powerful protocol and shoving it
into an awkward dinky protocol is always aestheticaly wrong.

technically, the issue probably isn't getting around firewalls,
but proxies. firewalls generally just allow or disallow a certain
set of ports (most, anyway). if that's indeed the issue, just run
a listener on port 80 of your server and connnect to that.

also, why would a distributed fs protocol need to be embeded in
http to be an alternative to WebDAV? why not just use 9p as is?
the drive to embed everything in http seems strange to me. is
the fact that WebDAV is a set of http "extentions" really a
selling point for most of its users? i doubt it.
ア

Re: [9fans] HTTP tunnelling of 9P -- taboo?

[matt]

> is the fact that WebDAV is a set of http "extentions" really a
> selling point for most of its users? i doubt it.

lack of unified document management tools for web authoring is the key to
it's appeal

"it works in a browser" is certainly a selling point, the many windowed
desktop is too noisy, user context switches seem less expensive inside the
same application - witness ftp in a browser etc.etc. For years I've bemoaned
the death of the application and the rich controls available to application
programmers. The people at my latest job were delighted when I switched them
from browser based <textarea> maintenance to "use a text editor & ftp" !

The biggest headache for many a web development house once the first
iteration is out of the door is maintenance.
Clients *never* ask about it, their focus is on what the customer will see.
Very rarely have they even considered what pages they themselves will want
and need [and it's a contract winner to mention it - makes you sound
professional].

The webDav FAQ provides the most compelling reason for massive wheel
re-invention : efficiency !!

http://www.webdav.org/other/faq.html#Q19

Q. Why should I use DAV instead of FTP?
A. Since DAV works over HTTP, you get all the benefits of HTTP that FTP
cannot provide. For example: strong authentication, encryption, proxy
support, and caching. It is true that you can get some of this through SSH,
but the HTTP infrastructure is much more widely deployed than SSH. Further,
SSH does not have the wide complement of tools, development libraries, and
applications that HTTP does.
DAV transfers (well, HTTP transfers) are also more efficient than FTP. You
can pipeline multiple transfers through a single TCP connection, whereas FTP
requires a new connection for each file transferred (plus the control
connection).


So, there you have it, re-tool your business to WebDAV and you can save a
few TCP connections

M


---
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Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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Re: [9fans] HTTP tunnelling of 9P -- taboo?

[Boyd Roberts]

matt wrote:

 > DAV transfers (well, HTTP transfers) are also more efficient than
FTP. You
 > can pipeline multiple transfers through a single TCP connection,
whereas FTP
 > requires a new connection for each file transferred (plus the control
connection).

Interesting definition of 'more efficient'.

Re: [9fans] HTTP tunnelling of 9P -- taboo?

[peter huang]

I have to say something about webdav.  For people do not have plan9 world,
it is one of the better extensions under http.   It meets the need for
updating the web site in a hetergenous enviornment.  As any authoring tools,
versioning is also important, Clearcase and subversion (cvs replacement)
will use webdav as the software configuration management (SCM) repository.
Plan9 SCM model is simple and elegant but not practical for "current" SCM
need (multiple test and development release trains, concurrent multiple
branching and merging ).   Furthermore, I don't consider http such a bad
protocol but it is all the layers on top of it making it worse and worse.
It was a simple protocol, easy to understand and implement and serve it's
intend design purpose (I was one of the earlier users way before Mosaic's
day).  I would consider ftp is one of the worse protocols in today's
internet world (no security).  However, security comes with a cost, I don't
see a sshfs in plan9 or any other systems.  Bear in mind, until the 4th
edition, the security layer in 9p isn't that clean either.  Finally, there
are quite a few off-line tools updating the web site using webdav protocol
and used no "browser", so it is not a browser only protocol.   If there is a
gateway to allow 9p to talk to webdav server, then something useful may come
of it.  However, no tunneling.

just my $0.2
-peter (putting on my flame armor now ;-))

Futhermore, the version
"matt" <matt@proweb.co.uk> wrote in message
news:00e601c28456$8810ee20$6501a8c0@KIKE...
>
> > is the fact that WebDAV is a set of http "extentions" really a
> > selling point for most of its users? i doubt it.
>
> lack of unified document management tools for web authoring is the key to
> it's appeal
>
> "it works in a browser" is certainly a selling point, the many windowed
> desktop is too noisy, user context switches seem less expensive inside the
> same application - witness ftp in a browser etc.etc. For years I've
bemoaned
> the death of the application and the rich controls available to
application
> programmers. The people at my latest job were delighted when I switched
them
> from browser based <textarea> maintenance to "use a text editor & ftp" !
>
> The biggest headache for many a web development house once the first
> iteration is out of the door is maintenance.
> Clients *never* ask about it, their focus is on what the customer will
see.
> Very rarely have they even considered what pages they themselves will want
> and need [and it's a contract winner to mention it - makes you sound
> professional].
>
> The webDav FAQ provides the most compelling reason for massive wheel
> re-invention : efficiency !!
>
> http://www.webdav.org/other/faq.html#Q19
>
> Q. Why should I use DAV instead of FTP?
> A. Since DAV works over HTTP, you get all the benefits of HTTP that FTP
> cannot provide. For example: strong authentication, encryption, proxy
> support, and caching. It is true that you can get some of this through
SSH,
> but the HTTP infrastructure is much more widely deployed than SSH.
Further,
> SSH does not have the wide complement of tools, development libraries, and
> applications that HTTP does.
> DAV transfers (well, HTTP transfers) are also more efficient than FTP. You
> can pipeline multiple transfers through a single TCP connection, whereas
FTP
> requires a new connection for each file transferred (plus the control
> connection).
>
>
> So, there you have it, re-tool your business to WebDAV and you can save a
> few TCP connections
>
> M
>
>
> ---
> Outgoing mail is certified as idiotic.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.408 / Virus Database: 230 - Release Date: 25/10/2002

Re: [9fans] HTTP tunnelling of 9P -- taboo?

[Skip Tavakkolian]

The number of users behind firewalls is significant enough that no
company thinking of products or services should forget about them;

> I get the impression that some people feel that http may soon be the
> only protocol allowed through corporate firewalls, with companies
> becoming more paranoid and implementing reverse firewalls (such as the
> Great Firewall of China).

[9fans] HTTP tunnelling of 9P -- taboo?

[Skip Tavakkolian]

To get around firewalls and provide an alternative to things
like WebDAV. What are the arguments (technical, aesthetic, etc.) against
it?