Re: [Dan.Oscarsson@kiconsulting.se: Comments on NFSv4 rfc3010bis-05 draft]

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From: Nicolas Williams (Nicolas.Williams@sun.com)
Date: 02/06/03-10:51:09 AM Z


Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 10:51:09 -0600
From: Nicolas Williams <Nicolas.Williams@sun.com>
Subject: Re: [Dan.Oscarsson@kiconsulting.se: Comments on NFSv4 rfc3010bis-05 draft]
Message-ID: <20030206105109.Y18728@binky.central.sun.com>

On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 05:48:32PM +0100, Dan Oscarsson wrote:
> >What I was getting at is that if the server does not enforce a
> >normalization form for filenames then the clients had better use one
> >normalization form to avoid interop problems, and if the client does the
> >normalization then that task can be moved to user-level, as in libc.
> >
> 
> Yes, and because of that I think the protocol must mandate
> normalisation form C. Then the server (kernel) code kan assume the
> format to be that and do not need to do any normalisation. If a client
> sends text in another form and thereby violates the protocol strange
> things may happen and bad answers. That is ok, that should happen if
> you do not follow the protocol. The whole meaning of defining a protocol
> is to agree on what "language" to speak and the meaning of the "words".
> If the protocol says UCS form C encoded using UTF-8 and somebody
> transmitts UCS-2 you violates the protocol.

I agree, with the caveat that the server MUST check that the filenames contain
only valid UTF-8 encodings (this is fairly simple, though,
unfortunately, not very efficient, but much, much more efficient than
enforcing a normalization).

I think we may end up drafting something to this end as a separate
document.

> If we define the normalisation form to be "undefined", we get a protocol
> where the "words" are loosly defined. I see no reason to allow more than
> one form of a "word". Why complicate the world? By selecting the most
> favoured normalisation form many systems can directely send text over
> the protocol without change. Both the Unix community and the World Wide Web
> have selected form C to be used. I am sure there are many more.

If normalization has to be done on the server, then I favor form D, if
it can be pushed to the client, then I favor whatever form is most
common amongst clients (which is likely to be C).

Cheers,

Nico
-- 


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