Re: IFS

[tdarcos () access digex net (Paul Robinson)]

On Mon, 13 Feb 1995, Dave Williss wrote:

> What is IFS, anyway?  I've seen it, but never anything to tell what it
> is, what it does, what IFS stands for.

Installable File System.  One of the uses is to, for example, put a large 
disk on one machine and have many others share it so that it is 
indistinguishable from a local disk if the link is fast enough.

Let's say that an organization with ten sites across the country wants to 
be able to have shared files or set up a database on Unix.  By having one 
site have the database files, and having the others access it via NFS 
instead of by having the database program use TCP/IP for sending inquiry 
requests across the net, they don't need to change the applications, just 
have them access the specific files on the networked drive, which could 
be down the hall or on the other side of the country as long as your 
links can handle the traffic and are consistently giving good uptime.