This is the README.hlfsd file for the ftp directory of the latest release of hlfsd (version 1.0). Hlfsd is available as part of my "unofficial patch-level" release of the amd package. It is available from the ftp host ftp.cs.columbia.edu in the directory /pub/amd. Please complete reading this file before proceeding further. -Erez Zadok HLFSD is a small NFS server which provides a dynamic symbolic-link, pointing to the invoking user's home directory. We use it at the Computer Science Department of Columbia University to redirect incoming mail into users' home directories, so they can read it from *any* host on our NFS-networked environment. We've used it for a year now. In the directory pub/amd/untarred/amd920824upl75/hlfsd/ you will find the sources to hlfsd, my LISA-7 paper, usage examples and scripts, and a man page. Here are the title and abstract for the paper: HLFSD: Delivering Email to Your $HOME Erez Zadok, Computer Science Department, Columbia University Alexander Dupuy, System Management ARTS We consider the problem of enabling users to access their mailbox files from any host on our local network, and not only on one designated ``home machine''. We require a solution which will not introduce any new single points of failure, force us to modify mail transfer agents and user agents, or require changes to the operating system kernels. In other words, minimize the amount of work needed by system-administrators and users. Our solution is to deliver mail into the users' home directories, which are exported via NFS to all of the machines on our network. We wrote a small user-level NFS server implementing a single symbolic link that references the home directory of a user, either the one who accessed it, or by name, with a fallback reference in case of failures. This enables electronic mail to be delivered directly into the user's home directory, which is already accessible from any machine on the network. Although we have used our server primarily for mail delivery redirection, it can be used to redirect spooled faxes, access to /tmp, etc. The paper discusses the reasons for having hlfsd, design, implementation, etc in more detail. Feel free to contact me with comments about the paper, code, the work in general, bug reports, or with patches. Thank you. To build hlfsd, you must get a complete distribution of my latest UPL release of amd. Hlfsd uses large portions of code from amd, and it only made sense to bundle them together. When you untar the distribution, if all you wish is to build hlfsd, then cd to the hlfsd/ directory and type "make". Also, since I've used code from amd, hlfsd is released under the same restrictions as amd is. Erez Zadok. Central Research Facilities. Columbia University Department of Computer Science. --- "A wank's morning starts one jiffy | Arpa: ezk@cs.columbia.edu after midnight." | Usenet: ...!rutgers!columbia!cs!ezk -HebrewWank #1 (US meaning, not UK!) | Bitnet: erzus@cuvmb.BITNET Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- write to lpf@uunet.uu.net