HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
NS/3000 and POSIX File Limitations
Stephen Bitondo
Information Networks Division
The NS/3000 services NFT (Network File Transfer, which includes the
DSCOPY subsystem), and RFA (Remote File Access), were not designed to
handle certain features that are part of the new MPE/iX POSIX file
functionality.
In particular, neither NFT (DSCOPY) nor RFA work with:
* Files whose names do not meet traditional MPE
filename syntax rules. Filenames must be of the form
FNAME[/LOCKWORD][.GROUPNAME[.ACCTNAME]]. HFS style filenames such
as /usr/include/stdio.h or ./Myfile will not work.
* Byte-stream files, or files whose record types indicate they are a
directory (account, group or HFS directory), or a fifo, symbolic
link, device link, or streams device file. Files must have Fixed,
Variable or Undefined record formats.
A workaround for this limitation is temporarily, on the local system,
convert the file you are trying to DSCOPY or access via RFA to a file
with a MPE-namespace name and Fixed, Variable or Undefined records. Do
your DSCOPY or RFA work on this converted file. When done, if necessary,
convert the resulting output file back to byte-stream format and/or
HFS-style filename, again doing this on the local system that the output
file is on. Local system utilities such as FCOPY with file equations, or
the utilities FROMBYTE.HPBIN.SYS or TOBYTE.HPBIN.SYS, or even the RENAME
C.I. command, may be used to do the conversion steps.
An alternative to DSCOPY that will transfer POSIX files without any
conversions, is to use the FTP 3000/iX product, product no. 36957A. FTP
is an industry standard protocol, and can be used to transfer files,
including POSIX type files, between an HP 3000 and many other types of
systems, including other HP 3000 systems.