1986 Reports

Approaches to Distributed UNIX Systems

Smith, Jonathan M.

This paper examines several approaches to developing a distributed version of the UNIX Operating system. Relevant UNIX concepts are introduced and brief overviews of a number of distributed UNIX implementations are provided. The major issues discussed are concurrency and file system architecture: 1. The multiprocessor designs examined have the common problem of implementing critical sections in the kernel; several approaches are studied. 2. The me system architectures studied reflect differing views as to how the UNIX name space should be implemented in a distributed environment, and what the names will refer to; the issue of transparency is central to both, and is examined in some detail.