UNIX FAQ Version 2.1 92/12/04 -- Question 6.8
UNIX FAQ Version 2.1 92/12/04 -- Question 6.8
Unix glossary.
From: "Pierre (P.) Lewis"
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 15:29:00 +0000
Version: 2.0
This section provides short definitions of various concepts and
components of (or related to) Unix systems.
Chorus: message-passing microkernel, may form basis for a future release
of SV. Chorus already have SVR4 running on top (binary-compatible).
DCE (Distributed Computing Environment, from OSF): Includes RPC (Apollo's
NCS), directory service (local based on DNS, global on X.500), time,
security, and threads services, DFS (distrib. file system), ....
OS-independent.
DME (Distributed Management Environment, from OSF): future.
FFS (Fast File System): alias for UFS (BSD name)
Mach: modern kernels from CMU (Carnegie Mellon University) on which many
Unices and other OSs are based (e.g. OSF/1, MacMach, ...):
- 2.5: monolithic kernel with 4.2BSD
- 3.0: microkernel with BSD Unix server in user space (and other OSs,
e.g. MS-DOS)
Newsgroup: comp.os.mach
MFS: Memory File System
NFS (Network File System): contributed by Sun to BSD, stateless server
ONC (Open Network Computing): from Sun(?), includes RPC, name service
(NIS aka YP), NFS, ... (found in many Unices, other OSs).
RFS (Remote File System): SV, stateful server, incompatible with NFS
RPC (Remote Procedure Call): high-level IPC (inter-process communication)
mechanism. Two flavors.
- ONC: Over TCP or UDP (later OSI), uses XDR to encode data.
- DCE: has a different RPC mechanism (based on Apollo's NCS)
S5 FS: System V's native file system, blocks 512 to 2K.
sockets: BSD interface mechanism to networks (compare TLI).
STREAMS: a message-passing kernel mechanism, initially in SVR3, which
provides a very good interface for protocol development.
TLI (Transport Library Interface): SV's interface to transport services
(TCP, OSI). UI has also defined an APLI (ACSE/Presentation Library
Interface)
UFS (?): BSD's native file system, blocks 4K to 8K, cylinder groups,
fragments.
XTI (X/Open Transport Interface): TLI with enhancements