A common VFS and a Common conf-system [Part II]

[Lars Hallberg]

Waldo Bastian wrote:

> On Tuesday 01 March 2005 16:48, Sean Middleditch wrote:
>
>> My original idea was to *NOT* have the backends run in the library or
>> host app itself, but instead to have a per-user daemon that handled all
>> of the actual VFS work, and then the library would simply be an API that
>> made it easy for an app to talk to the daemon.   
>
>
> Yes, I think this is a good approach. We may want to put some thought 
> in whether we would want to have a single-threaded daemon process, a 
> multi-threaded daemon or a single process deamon with additional 
> worker processes.

Does this at all matter? If I have anderstod corektly:

apps ---D-BUS---- D-VFS deamon ----D-BUS---- Protokoll backend deamon

Wher the the D-VFS demon just keep track of what backend handles what 
protokoll, and witch bakend deamons are loaded, wher they are and what 
'sites' they have open.

If one app wants to access a file over ftp, say ftp//:foo.bar/somefile

1) it ask the D-VFS deamon for a  conektion to ftp//:foo.bar

2a) if the D-VFS know of no ftp demon, one is started (posably by D-BUS 
aktivation), and given the request ftp//:foo.bar, the demon responds to 
the D-VFS demon that it takes responsabillity of ftp//:foo.bar. D-VFS 
save a record of the ftp deamons existans and comitment.

2b) if the D-VFS deamon know a ftp demaon, sends the request to it. The 
ftp demon can self deside wheter it shuld handle the conection itself, 
in witch case it just reports that back to the D-VFS deamon, or it might 
clone itself (by fork or other means) an let onother process report pack 
to the D-VFS deamon that it take responsability for ftp//:foo.bar.

2c) if the D-VFS deamon know of a ftp deamon that alredy have foo.bar 
open, it just skips to 3.

3) In any case, the D-VFS demon report back to the app what backend 
deamon handles ftp//:foo.bar

4) The app then talk thru D-BUS and optinaly other means directly with 
the backend deamon.

Wheter ther is one deamon for every ftp conektion, or one fore each 
site, is an implementation detail of the backend. If the backend is 
threded or not is also an implementation detail of the backend deamon.

Sometimes posably one backend demon cover more then one protokol. In 
cases they are simular (like http, https, DAV, different DAV 
subprotokoll). Such deamon can still 'fork off' for every different 
server and/or protokol it conects to.

The protokoll shuld idealy work well on the whole set of possable 
implementations. It is likly that different implementations is ideal for 
different protokoll!

/LaH