mapping [process|socket|...] to Filesystem

[Richard Kästner]

On Tuesday 03 January 2006 20:20, Gary Corcoran wrote:
>
> Richard Kästner wrote:
> > On Monday 02 January 2006 22:29, Björn König wrote:
> >>Richard Kästner schrieb:
> >>>Hello,
> >>>
> >>>hope to find some help, hints and experience here:
> >>>
> >>>an external device expects commands and command data,
> >>>it produces result-codes and result data.
> >>>Communication is done via HTTP (and working)
> >>>
> >>>The idea is, to allow access via Samba, which requires either
> >>>implementation of Samba - VFS modules or mapping to BSD-Filesystem -
> >>>pseudofs came to my mind.
> >>>[...]
> >>
> >>Hello,
> >>
> >>your description is a little bit vague to me, but it sounds like that
> >>this task can be probably done by using portalfs. See mount_portalfs(8)
> >>for examples.
> >>
> >>Regards Björn
> >
> > Björn,
> > (sorry for being vague - I seem to be too deep in my problems)
> >
> > thanks for the tip - portalfs was the first thing to try, but it does not
> > work with samba (at least the way, I wanted ):
> > Portalfs does not allow to pass anything besides '/p/tcp/localhost/6666'
> >
> > To be less vague :
> > the external device is a black box, communicates via ???-HTTP server.
> >
> > The idea is:
> > - a (windows)user copies a file to a directory (say: .../commands/xyz),
> > - there is a "thing", that maps this file to some activity towards
> > external box (similar to: procfs_doprocnote )
> > - as a response, a file appears in another file (.../response/data),
> >   which can be read from (windows)client ( similar to:
> > procfs_doproccmdline) - the whole stuff should work diskless
> > - response data can be from a few bytes up to several megabyte
> >
> >
> > - if I can manage, I could export this filesystem via samba _and_ nfs ...
> >
> > - if it all was only about acces to the black box, it could be done via
> > HTTP ... unfortunately, I have to deal with windows clients
>
> I'm just curious: why can't the windows clients just use Firefox (or
> any other browser) to access the black box?  You can download files
> (e.g. results) with a browser...
>
> Gary

As I wrote: it could be done via browser, but 
1. it is a request 
2. I became curious, if it is possible ... 

Richard

BTW: I appologize, if I am cross-posting. 
Originally only posted to freebsd-fs at freebsd.org. Don't realize, how it 
appeared on freebsd-questions

-- 
Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Richard Kästner
EDV-Beratung
Woerthgasse 17
2500 Baden
Austria