[Info-vax] Request description of UFS for VMS person

[AEF]

On Apr 30, 3:10 pm, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilber... at comcast.net>
wrote:
> Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> > In article <ae561039-9f98-47a3-8f01-40b615214... at j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
> >    AEF <spamsink2... at yahoo.com> writes:
> >> On Apr 28, 10:17 am, "Bob Eager" <rd... at spamcop.net> wrote:
> >>> On Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:37:23 UTC,
>
> >>> koeh... at eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) wrote:
> >>>> In article <176uZD2KcidF-pn2-uSusmdQq9... at rikki.tavi.co.uk>, "Bob Eager" <rd... at spamcop.net> writes:
> >>>>> I needed to use it a couple of times in the early days (33 years ago)
> >>>>> but not since. My point in mentioning 'clri' is that someone here
> >>>>> thought that functionality was essential on VMS to tidy up a borked
> >>>>> directory, and (by implication) that 'Unix' was broken if it couldn't do
> >>>>> it. In practice, it seems that VMS *needs* it and Unix doesn't.
> >>>>    Nobody said UNIX was broken if it couldn't do it.  The question was
> >>>>    why VMS has it, and an answer was given.  It was pointed out that
> >>>>    other OS needed some way to recover from the same situation (a
> >>>>    corrupt disctory), but no claim was made as to how that had to be
> >>>>    implemented.
> >>> Nobody said VMS was broken! The VMS file system has many advantages. I
> >>> merely pointed out that ffs, at any rate, didn't seem to need a way to
> >>> recover from that situation.
>
> >> [My apologies if this appears twice. Google Groups told me it posted
> >> successfully, but that was after a long wait during which I edited my
> >> response in an external editor. I waited a while and it didn't show
> >> up. So I'm posting this again.]
>
> >> The primary one I can think of is that everything on the volume really
> >> *is* a file. Everything in the volume is "transparent". In Unix, at
> >> least the ones I have access to I don't know how to dump the super
> >> block or inodes. And on one of them I can't even dump a directory!
>
> > Again, it is not that Uix won't let it be done, it is that either you
> > just don't know how or you lack the needed permissions.  If you really
> > are interested in learning some of this I would suggest setting up a
> > system or two of your won so you have root privs and play with it.
>
> >> So can you or anyone else tell us more of the advantages? How about
> >> disadvantages?
>
> > Greatest advantage is functionality.  Unix doesn't tie my hands.
> > Greatest disadvantage is functionality.  Unix doesn't tie my hands.
> > (which could be a real problem if I don't have a clue what I am doing.
> > I have seen people open directories with vi.  :-)
>
> I have had newbies try to edit a directory with EDT!  Truely clueless
> about VMS.  I wouldn't want to try in Unix; it just MIGHT let me do it
> but I wouldn't know how to recover.  In VMS I've had to clean up such a
> mess; delete the corrupted directory and ANALYZE /DISK_STRUCTURE /REPAIR
>   DKA100:.  Then create a replacement for the corrupted directory and
> populate it with the files from [SYSLOST], inform the user just how he
> will DIE if he does it again.
>
> <snip>

What corrupted directory? If you edit a .dir;1 file and save it, you
get a .dir;2 file, which is treated by RMS as any old file. The
original .dir;1 still works. Now if they additionally RENAME the .dir
files, then you can get in trouble.

AEF