Subject: Differences between Root FileHandle and Public Filehandle

From: Somenath Bandyopadhyay <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 19:38:15 -0700

After reading all the discussions related to root filehandle and public
filehandles , I am still confused with the definition of those:
From section 4.1.2:

"the PUBLIC filehandle may be bound or represent an arbitrary file
system object at the server".

But looking at the examples given in discussions , that's also true for
a root filehandle. Then I go ahead and read the specification carefully
for
root filehandle...it says:

"...is the "conceptual" root of the file system name space at the
NFS server"...

So what's the difference? Its just the conceptual root of the
filesystem...so "conceptually" it can also represent
"an arbitrary filesystem object at the server", right?

1) So the correct interpretation of the RFC ( as per me ) is:
PUBLIC filehandle and root filehandle both represent "an arbitrary
filesystem object at the server", even that object may be the same.

This way NFSV4 server can represent two types of pseudo filesystems. But
RFC does not say that clearly.

2) I also interpret from the emails that, a NFSV4 client will only use
one of those  types to start with...it really doesn't matter which one
( since
    both represnt "an arbitrary......." ). Is that true?

or,

3) Can a NFSV4 client use both PUTROOTFH and PUTPUBFH and expose both
the name spaces to the NFSV4 client and appliations? This part
is not clearly stated in the RFC.

thanks, som.