[TUHS] portal daemon (was Re: networking on unix before uucp)

[Aaron J. Grier]

On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 11:57:01AM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> #     filedes = open( "/dev/net/harv",2 );
> #     if( filedes < 0 )
> #        printf(" harvard is dead");
> #     else
> #        while( (nbytes=read(filedes,buf,80)) > 0 )
> #           write( 0,buf,nbytes );                                   
> 
> If only this code still worked on modern Unixes!  The socket API is
> fine, but there really was no need to break good old open, at least
> for client-side operations.  Plan 9 got it right here, as usual.

was this the impetus behind mount_portal in 4.4BSD?  It's still
available in NetBSD, although I've never played with it myself.

-- 
  Aaron J. Grier | "Not your ordinary poofy goof." | agrier at poofygoof.com