Re: [nfsv4] [FedFS] XDR encoding of path "/"

["Spencer Shepler" <[e-mail]>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [e-mail] [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of
> James Lentini
> Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 7:17 AM
> To: [e-mail]
> Subject: [nfsv4] [FedFS] XDR encoding of path "/"
> 
> 
> At the BAT, Chuck Lever and I discussed what the pathname4 encoding of "/"
> should be.
> 
> In addition to being used by the fs_locations and fs_locations_info
> attributes, the pathname4 format is used by the fedfsNfsPath LDAP
> attribute (see Section 4.2.1.14 of draft-ietf-nfsv4-federated-fs-protocol-
> 09), and the FedFsPathName XDR type (see draft-ietf-nfsv4-federated-fs-
> admin-07).
> 
> I'm aware of two different approaches to encoding "/".
> 
> One interpretation is to encode an array with zero compnent4 values.
> This encoding is a single 32-bit field containing a 0. The Linux NFS
> server and the SNSDB tools use this format.
> 
> Another interpretation is to encode an array with one zero-length
> component4 value. The encoding of this is a 32-bit field containing a
> 1 followed by a 32-bit field containing a 0.
> 
> The Linux NFS client appears to accept both of these encodings for "/".
> 
> Are there any implementations using a different encoding than the ones
> above?
> 
> I'm thinking it would make sense to record these different formats or
> recommend the use of a specific format in one (or both) of the FedFS
> specifications.
>

Good point. FedFS specification is a good choice.  As to the specifics,
I would mildly prefer both be specified as acceptable encodings.

Spencer