9 ms·

From the Wikipedia article: >Consequently, sharing the device across the network can be accomplished by mounting the corresponding directory tree to the target

From the Wikipedia article: >Consequently, sharing the device across the network can be accomplished by mounting the corresponding directory tree to the target machine. Does this mean Plan 9 natively supports sharing any device managed by the kernel over a network connection?

mischief6 13y ago
you can share virtually anything that can be represented as a file, including filesystems served by the kernel. e.g. "import -b $server '#A' /dev" will allow you to write to /dev/audio on a remote server.
4ad 13y ago
Yes, mounting a remote /proc means instant remote debugging. Mounting a remote /net means instant VPN.
- smorrow 13y ago
  ...bores me to no end. There's never any use for that stuff. The opposite direction is more interesting, when the far end of the cpu connection uses /mnt/term, especially for the like of /mnt/term/mnt/plumb. I've never really understood why 'import /proc' is better than 'cpu acid'. Yeah, there's cases where the remote host won't have acid installed. More interesting, I think, would be stuff like getting /net in a VM from the host OS [surely 9vx or inferno's /net could be separated out], getting /dev/sd* from a 9P server that knows QCOW, etc. Not mattering whether it's in the kernel or userspace, without using $LD_*, is also far more interesting that not mattering whether it's local or remote.
SixSigma 13y ago
yes, you can even debug processes on a different cpu architecture, over serial of you like, or a pipe, or even by hijacking dns records, or even via email, any way of organising exchanging bytes 9p is an awesome idea and when you've used plan9 for a while going back to other OSes has you constantly frustrated.
- azinman2 13y ago
  Except for that whole everything else is written for Mac, Linux, windows thing.
  - npsimons 13y ago
    A decade (or so) ago, you could have said the same thing while leaving out "Linux" (some would argue it's still valid to leave out Linux in that claim). Things have a way of changing, and even I, as a big fan of Linux, can see its limitations and hope that, at the very least, Linux will integrate some of the better ideas from other OSes (Plan9 especially has some awesome ideas). Or, you know, Plan9 sticks to its guns and gains traction. I might even go as far as saying the world could do worse than to replace OSX and Windows with the likes of Plan9 and Inferno.
    - mercurial 13y ago
      While I think the overall concept is amazing, my understanding is that the user interface stayed somewhere in the mid-nineties, and that it lacks things people tend to expect in a modern UNIX-like operating system, such as a decent browser, vim, shell history and symlinks. On the other hand, it has in some ways infected Linux (virtual filesystems), though sadly in a fairly limited fashion (think of copy-paste on steroids, built-in authentication agent). The way it is designed around a single, simple but powerful metaphor (everything is a file) is really brilliant.
      - seryoiupfurds 13y ago
        > decent browser This, along with hardware support, is why I don't run Plan 9 as my only OS. Porting a modern browser to Plan 9 would be incredibly painful, and I believe the codebase of Chromium or Firefox is larger than Plan 9 itself these days! > vim Someone actually ported vim, and it's pretty easy to install from contrib. > symlinks These are a deliberate omission; the ability to rearrange the filesystem with bind doesn't correspond exactly to symlinks since it's done as a property of the current namespace rather than stored in the filesystem, but with the idioms that are built around bind, I've never missed symlinks at all. Sorry for going into defensive-weenie mode and attacking your positive post!

mischief6 13y ago

you can share virtually anything that can be represented as a file, including filesystems served by the kernel. e.g. "import -b $server '#A' /dev" will allow you to write to /dev/audio on a remote server.

4ad 13y ago

Yes, mounting a remote /proc means instant remote debugging. Mounting a remote /net means instant VPN.

smorrow 13y ago
...bores me to no end. There's never any use for that stuff. The opposite direction is more interesting, when the far end of the cpu connection uses /mnt/term, especially for the like of /mnt/term/mnt/plumb. I've never really understood why 'import /proc' is better than 'cpu acid'. Yeah, there's cases where the remote host won't have acid installed. More interesting, I think, would be stuff like getting /net in a VM from the host OS [surely 9vx or inferno's /net could be separated out], getting /dev/sd* from a 9P server that knows QCOW, etc. Not mattering whether it's in the kernel or userspace, without using $LD_*, is also far more interesting that not mattering whether it's local or remote.

SixSigma 13y ago

yes, you can even debug processes on a different cpu architecture, over serial of you like, or a pipe, or even by hijacking dns records, or even via email, any way of organising exchanging bytes 9p is an awesome idea and when you've used plan9 for a while going back to other OSes has you constantly frustrated.

azinman2 13y ago
Except for that whole everything else is written for Mac, Linux, windows thing.
- npsimons 13y ago
  A decade (or so) ago, you could have said the same thing while leaving out "Linux" (some would argue it's still valid to leave out Linux in that claim). Things have a way of changing, and even I, as a big fan of Linux, can see its limitations and hope that, at the very least, Linux will integrate some of the better ideas from other OSes (Plan9 especially has some awesome ideas). Or, you know, Plan9 sticks to its guns and gains traction. I might even go as far as saying the world could do worse than to replace OSX and Windows with the likes of Plan9 and Inferno.
  - mercurial 13y ago
    While I think the overall concept is amazing, my understanding is that the user interface stayed somewhere in the mid-nineties, and that it lacks things people tend to expect in a modern UNIX-like operating system, such as a decent browser, vim, shell history and symlinks. On the other hand, it has in some ways infected Linux (virtual filesystems), though sadly in a fairly limited fashion (think of copy-paste on steroids, built-in authentication agent). The way it is designed around a single, simple but powerful metaphor (everything is a file) is really brilliant.
    - seryoiupfurds 13y ago
      > decent browser This, along with hardware support, is why I don't run Plan 9 as my only OS. Porting a modern browser to Plan 9 would be incredibly painful, and I believe the codebase of Chromium or Firefox is larger than Plan 9 itself these days! > vim Someone actually ported vim, and it's pretty easy to install from contrib. > symlinks These are a deliberate omission; the ability to rearrange the filesystem with bind doesn't correspond exactly to symlinks since it's done as a property of the current namespace rather than stored in the filesystem, but with the idioms that are built around bind, I've never missed symlinks at all. Sorry for going into defensive-weenie mode and attacking your positive post!