The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jun. 27, 2000
Filed:
Jun. 13, 1997
Glenn Story, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Amardeep S Sodhi, Fremont, CA (US);
Gary Tom, San Jose, CA (US);
Mon For Yee, San Francisco, CA (US);
Compaq Computer Corporation, Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for interfacing with a stateless NFS (Network File System) server. A pseudo-open state is created for a file when a request from a network client for accessing the file is received in a network server. The term pseudo-open data relates to a set of data that is kept in a network server. The pseudo-open describes the state of a file being currently accessed via an NFS server in the network server. The pseudo-open data differs from normal file state data in that it can be created or recreated at will, thus preserving the stateless functionality of the NFS server. Thus, if a request is received at any time and there is no pseudo-open state established for the file, the pseudo-open state will be established or reestablished at that time. If, on the other hand, a request is received for which a pseudo-open state already exists, the overhead of creating the pseudo-open state is avoided, and the existing data is used. The pseudo-open state is stored in a file-system data structure called VNODE. Each active file has an associated VNODE. The pseudo-open state of a file can be then closed. The state of the file can be changed to a higher or lower level of access privilege via open-promotion or open-demotion operations, respectively. Open-demotion refers to the change of a file state to a lower level of access privilege.