Hi !

After hitting my head so many times against the wall of limitations of the CODA kernel module interface:
Is there any interest in redesigning and re-writing the kernel module+userspace interface ?

What's my problem:
Primary problem is that CODA kernel interface doesn't provide a way to read small _parts_ of "remote" files. For example running a script which uses /usr/bin/file to determinate the datatype of a file will trigger the download of the _complete_ file - even if only the first two bytes are required.
Many modern desktop environments (like CDE) use datatyping by file contents (_good_ idea) instead of filename-based datatyping (like done in M$ operating systems - a very _bad_ idea) - which results in the same problem noted above.
Think about a ftp site (using CODA kernel-module and podfuk+ftpfs) which has large INDEX files (~60MB). File manager likes to determinate the datatype - reads the first two bytes - but triggers the download of 60MB.
Quite efficient, isn't it ? ;-(((

(Possible) solution:
Allow random-access (read/write etc.) to remote files. What about an interface to the SYSV-VFS layer, e.g. moving more stuff from kernel to userspace layer ?

Comments ?

Bye,
Roland

-- 
  __ .  . __
 (o.\ \/ /.o) Roland.Mainz_at_informatik.med.uni-giessen.de
  \__\/\/__/  gisburn_at_informatik.med.uni-giessen.de
  /O /==\ O\  MPEG specialist, C&&JAVA&&Sun&&Unix programmer
 (;O/ \/ \O;) TEL +49 641 99-13193 FAX +49 641 99-41359