nsmux

nsmux implements the simplest use-case of namespace-based translator selection (see below).

To use nsmux do the following:

$ settrans -a <node> nsmux <directory>

After this operation <node> will be a mirror of <directory> with namespace-based translator selection functionality enabled.

Please note that due to some details nsmux may complain a lot when run as a normal user. This matter is the most urgent on the TODO list.

Source

nsmux translator can be obtained with the following series of commands:

$ git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/hurd/incubator.git nsmux
$ cd nsmux/
$ git checkout -b nsmux origin/nsmux

filter translator can be obtained with the following series of commands:

$ git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/hurd/incubator.git filter
$ cd filter/
$ git checkout -b filter origin/filter

The filter is not yet working.

Namespace-based Translator Selection

Namespace-based translator selection is the special technique of using "magic" filenames for both accessing the file and setting translators on it.

A "magic" filename is a filename which contains an unescaped sequence of two commas: ",,". This sequence can be escaped by adding another comma: ",,,". In the magic filename the part up to the first double commas is interpreted as the filename itself; the remaining segments into which the string is split by occurrences of ",," are treated as names of translators located under /hurd/.

The simplest advantage before traditional way of setting translators is shown in the following examples. Compare this

$ settrans -a file translator1
$ settrans -a file translator2
$ cat file

to this:

$ cat file,,translator1,,translator2

One simple command versus three more lengthy ones is an obvious improvement. However, this advantage is not the only one and, probably, not even the most important.

What is a good candidate for the most important advantage is that translators requested via "magic" filenames are session-bound. In other words, by running cat file,,translator we set a translator visible only to cat, while the original file remains untranslated. Such session-specific translators are called dynamic and there is no (theoretical) way for a client to get a port to a dynamic translator requested by another client.

Obviously, dynamic translators can be stacked, similarly to static translators. Also, dynamic translator stacks may reside on top of static translator stacks.

An important operation of namespace-based translator selection is filtering. Filtering basically consists in looking up a translator by name in the stack and ignoring translators located on top of it. Note that filtering does not mean dropping some translators: in the current implementation a filter is expected to be a normal dynamic translator, included in the dynamic translator stack similarly to other translators.

An important detail is that filtering is not limited to dynamic translator stacks: a filter should be able to descend into static translator stacks as well.

Although the concept of filtering may seem purely abstract in the simplest use-case of setting dynamic translators on top of files, the situation changes greatly when dynamic translator stacks on top of directories are considered. In this case, the implementation of namespace-based translator selection is expected to be able to propagate the dynamic translators associated with the directory down the directory structure. That is, all files located under a directory opened with magic syntax, are expected to be translated by the same set of translators. In this case having the possibility to specifically discard some of the translators set up on top of certain files is very useful.

Note that the implementation of propagation of dynamic translators down directories is not fully conceived at the moment. The fundamental problem is distinguishing between situations when the dynamic translators are to be set on the underlying files of the directory or on the directory itself.

Currently Implemented

Currently there a working (though not heavily tested) implementation of the simplest use-case of namespace-based translator selection in the form of translator nsmux. The filter is partially implemented and this is the immediate goal. Propagating translators down directories is the next objective.

Open Issues

IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-08-22

< youpi> err, is nsmux supposed to work at all?
< youpi> a mere ls doesn't work
< youpi> I'm running it as a user
< youpi> echo * does work though
< teythoon> ah, yes, nsmux,,is,,funny :p
< youpi> well, perhaps but I can't make it work
< youpi> well, the trivial ,,hello does work
< youpi> but ,,tarfs doesn't seem to be working for instance
< youpi> same for ,,mboxfs
< youpi> ,,xmlfs seems to somehow work a bit, but not very far...
< youpi> so it seems just nobody is caring about putting READMEs wherever
  appropriate
< youpi> e.g. examples in socketio/ ...