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I want to create file system which acts by this way:

File Read operation:
Read D:\AlicePC\Poems\poem.txt
will instead return content of
\\AlicePC\Poems\poem.txt (YES, the file from remote PC)

File Create operation:
creating file
C:\BobPC\Song\song.txt
will cause creation of
\\BobPC\Song\song.txt (YES, the file on remote PC)

Operations should be transparent for applications and windows explorer like Dropbox

Which is reliable way to create such file system? Is it driver filter of file driver? Or .NET managed implementation?
Thanks for any help!


PS lets assume AlicePC and BobPC are trusted and accessible UNC resources and we have proper permissons and in same windows domain

the kernel code would be like
CreateFile(path)
{
remotePC= \\BobPC\ ;
BasicFileSystemCreateFile(remotePC + path) ;
}
Posted
Updated 22-Oct-13 10:51am
v3
Comments
Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 22-Oct-13 16:45pm    
What do you mean by file system?
One file system is NTFS, others are ext2, ext3, FAT32, etc. Do you really want to create another one? If not, you should not use the term "file system".
—SA
Arseniy-developer 22-Oct-13 16:49pm    
Well, it just should rely on existing NTFS storages with enabled SMB sharing. Just like network mapping but in a new way
Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 22-Oct-13 16:51pm    
Why SMB? Is that because you are using Mono for Linux, or something?
—SA
Arseniy-developer 22-Oct-13 17:04pm    
I dont know, if it should be SMB or NFS
The given is - we have 1000 standard machines in local network with windows 7 and NTFS
And we want to use free space on their hard drives. But we do not want to add 1000 network drives to my pc because it is boring.
We just create magic directory and it content is magicaly storing in network machine's hard drives (oh may by it is impossible)
And my main and target PCs are windows machines
Philippe Mori 22-Oct-13 18:41pm    
Some operation does not works the same on local and remote file systems. For example, SQL CE database won't open on a share. CHM file will be protected on a share.

Have a look at: OpenAFS[^]

I guess it does what you want it to do, and then some ...

Best regards
Espen Harlinn
 
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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 22-Oct-13 17:28pm    
Interesting, a 5.
—SA
Espen Harlinn 22-Oct-13 17:35pm    
Thanks Sergey - OpenAFS is a gem, and it's highly useful when you have an environment that includes a plethora of operating systems.
Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 22-Oct-13 17:44pm    
Probably, it makes it the best answer of OP. :-)
—SA
Stop before you go any further with this project.

Read up on the Distributed File System that is built into Windows SERVER already.

This is a SERVER technology, not workstation. Workstations cannot be part of a DFS. They must be Windows Server based shares.

You have a very large problem with doing this solely on Windows workstations, even using a 3rd party product. Workstation builds of Windows have an inbound connection limit of 10, except for Windows 7 has a limit of 20.

This means that only 20 other workstations can connect to a workstation machine to pickup files and other things. If you've got a group of say 50 machines that access a file on a share, 30 of them cannot touch it.
 
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Espen Harlinn 22-Oct-13 17:25pm    
5'ed! DFS is certainly an option - you will probably like to have a look at: OpenAFS for Windows, as it's not as limited as DFS when used with the non-server versions of Windows.
Dave Kreskowiak 22-Oct-13 23:34pm    
I would assume you run into the Workstation connection limit though. He did say he's running about 1,000 machines.

Managing that sounds like a nightmare, and that's not even touching the possibility of running workstations out of disk space by accident.
Espen Harlinn 23-Oct-13 9:37am    
I don't think that you run into that limit using AFS - it has, reportedly, been used on quite large installations - involving a very large number of computers, many of them running non-server versions of Windows.

>> not even touching the possibility of running
>> workstations out of disk space by accident
Now, that's an entirely different problem ;)

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 22-Oct-13 17:28pm    
Good idea, a 5.
—SA
Is there a way to map a UNC path to a local folder on Windows 2003?[^]

There may be some other solutions for younger MS OS's ; I've seen some links at the top of the basic research I did.
 
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Arseniy-developer 22-Oct-13 17:02pm    
Phil, we need to map (or 'link') around thousand remote common folders (not local folders) and I dont have and idea how to do it
Espen Harlinn 22-Oct-13 17:07pm    
That's one area where AFS shines ;)
phil.o 22-Oct-13 17:12pm    
Did you follow the link I gave you, especially answer number 3?
Did you try mklink /D C:\BobPC\Song \\BobPC\Song? Did you try to create some text file in it?

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