[Cyan]<CedarChest6.0>Documentation>NSCopyDoc.tioga!2

NSCopyDoc.tioga

Bill Jackson, August 7, 1985

Dave Rumph, February 3, 1986 7:00:32 pm PST

NSCopy

CEDAR 6.0 — FOR INTERNAL XEROX USE ONLY

NSCopy

Proxy Access to the NS World

Bill Jackson and Dave Rumph

Abstract: NSCopy is a "Hack"in every sense of the word. The goal of its hoped for short life is to provide "Interim" file transfer ability between both the NS and PUP worlds. It provides the ability to transfer files between any two points in the file server universe. The way that this is accomplished is that some Cedar engine asks an XDE engine to open "network" streams on file servers in its known universe (using the XDE FileTransfer package). The transfer then proceeds without using disk space on the part of either the XDE or Cedar machines. If you would like to transfer a file to your own workstation, then you must convince it to masquarade as a file server (STPServer). Also note that file names must be in file server conventions, with the exception that NSCopy will convert names like "[RamRod$OSBU←North$Xerox]<foo>mumble>bar" into
"[RamRod:OSBU North:Xerox]<foo>mumble>bar" in order to get around FS' notions of "special characters".

Created by: Bill Jackson

Maintained by: Bill Jackson <BJackson.pa>

Keywords: Hack, XNS, Filing, Copy, Headaches, XD

XEROX Xerox Corporation
Palo Alto Research Center
3333 Coyote Hill Road
Palo Alto, California 94304

For Internal Xerox Use Only

1. Operation

This document assumes some familiarity with the NS world.

NSCopy is invoked by typing NSCopy [destServer]<destDirectory>destFilename.ext ← [sourceServer]<sourceDirectory>sourceFilename.ext to the CommandTool. The destFilename and extension are optional. Both the destServer and sourceServer can be PUP, NS or null. STPServer must be running on the user's machine if a null server is specified. Star expansion is done only in the case of a null sourceServer. PseudoServer mapping is done to both source and destination servers. Only the first Read server is tried.

No operation except copying, such as listing, deleting or renaming, is supported.

2. Special Character Mapping

Because the NS world considers colons and spaces as legal filename characters while Cedar does not, NSCopy makes special provision for specifying these special characters. The mapping is a follows:

Specify a space (' ') in an NS filename by using a left arrow ('←').

Specify a colon (':') in an NS filename by using a dollar sign ('$').

Servers are assumed by the NSCopyAgent to be PUP unless they contain a colon (dollar sign). The clearinghouse will append the local domain and organization if they are missing and it knows the server is NS. You can assure this by making the last character of an incomplete NS server name a colon (dollar sign).

For example, [RamRod$] will be converted to [RamRod:] by the NSCopyAgent and then expanded to [RamRod:OSBU North:Xerox] by the Clearinghouse. [RamRod] (no dollar sign) will be interpreted as a PUP server, which it isn't, and the operation will fail by timing out.

3. User Profile Entries

Two user profile entries are required by NSCopy, the user's NS name and the name of the machine running as an NSCopyAgent server. I suggest that the NSCopyAgent server name be in the machine profile, ///machineName.machineProfile.

NSAgent.Server: TOKEN ← NIL;

The XDE machine running the NSAgent code. Users in Palo Alto want "Thunderbird". Users in Pasadena want "Pasa101End". This entry should go in the machine profile.

NSAgent.CHName: TOKEN ← NIL;

The full NS name of the user, including Domain and Organization. For example "Bill Jackson:PARC:Xerox".

4. Setting up a new agent

Talk to Bill Jackson (BJackson.pa, Intelnet 923-4573) before doing this.