From: Adam Shostack <adam@homeport.org>
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 23:31:00 +0800
To: johnbr@atl.mindspring.com (John Brothers)
Subject: Re: Internet File System?
In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19960922191022.00736898@pop.mindspring.com>
Message-ID: <199609231251.HAA02343@homeport.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


John Brothers wrote:

| The other day, it occurred to me that Java could really take off if there
| was some sort of file system.  And, since you can't write to local files
| with Java, the obvious solution is to set up the 'fopen, fclose(), etc)
| set of functions that are 'rpcs' to some server application on the same
| computer as the web server the applet comes from.

	Interesting idea.  But, this requires that for disk access,
the applet have network access.  Violates the principle of least
privledge.

	The correct solution seems to me give the applet limited local
disk access.  To those who claim this can't be done, I point to the
UNIX kernel, which, with a small set of primitives, controls disk
access pretty effectively.  (Quotas were added in 1984.)

	This micro kernel could be added outside of the Java VM, so
that the Java code can't touch it, only call it.  The V7 kernel is
pretty small and efficient by todays standards.   Might want to use
BSD4.4 instead, and also get portals, which would allow you to use
/dev/tcp/www.netscape.com/80 as a file with certain permissions.  See 
http://www.bsdi.com/bsdi-man?proto=1.1&msection=ALL&apropos=1&query=portal



Adam

-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
					               -Hume