Issue 4209: ftam/ftp issue: Setting up file transfers and transfer protocols (ftamftp-ftf) Source: DSTC (Mr. Ted McFadden, mcfadden@dstc.edu.au) Nature: Uncategorized Issue Severity: Summary: ftam/ftp issue: Setting up file transfers and transfer protocols ---------------------------------------------------------------- In addition to the previous issues 4177, 4183 I've raised about file transfer and protocols I would like to recommend that a somewhat more complete approach be taken to managing the transfer operations (transfer, append, and insert). The current approach doesn't allow the virtual file systems to perform any kind of real protocol negotiation, resource/socket init, set-up acknowledge, or resource release. For instance, when speaking "TCP" as illustrated in Chapter 4, the port numbers are fixed by the supported_protocols attributes. A file system cannot change the port it would like to use on a per transfer request basis. This can be restrictive to allowing multiple transfers to happen in parallel or determining what file's data just came in on a socket. I am suggesting that an approach similar to the one used in the Audio/Video Stream specification be used. In this case an endpoint object would be established to represent each end of the file transfer. There is the opportunity for simple negotiation, such as picking protocols and port numbers. The IDL in the A/V Stream spec is far too heavy-weight for ftam/ftp but the concepts used for connection set-up and management are relevant. Just using a few of the A/V flow/end-point operations like set_peer, go_to_listen, and connect_to_peer would be sufficient. At OOC, we have begun experimenting with IDL that supports the notion of transfer `endpoints.' A different type of endpoint is created for each type of protocol, so matched protocol (such as TCP) endpoints talk to each other. And a CORBA endpoint is defined so two file systems can always transfer if they share no other common protocols. Resolution: see above Revised Text: Section 2.1.4 File Transfer, Section 2.2 File Transfer Protocols, Section 3.1.7 File Inter-face, Section 3.1.8 TransferEndPoint Interface Actions taken: February 20, 2001: received issue Discussion: Resolution Changed the IDL to adopt an approach similar to the A/V streams spec where one end-point starts a “listen”, the other end point “connects”. The interface TransferEndPoint was added. The File interface has a new operation: create_end_point. End of Annotations:===== Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 16:36:06 +1000 From: Ted McFadden To: issues@omg.org Cc: tmcf@ooc.com.au Subject: ftam/ftp issue: Setting up file transfers / CORBA transfer protocol Message-ID: <20010220163606.B10708@ooc.com.au> Mail-Followup-To: issues@omg.org Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-UIDL: ~]j!!Ipf!!ap1!!baE!! Hi, ftam/ftp issue: Setting up file transfers and transfer protocols ---------------------------------------------------------------- In addition to the previous issues 4177, 4183 I've raised about file transfer and protocols I would like to recommend that a somewhat more complete approach be taken to managing the transfer operations (transfer, append, and insert). The current approach doesn't allow the virtual file systems to perform any kind of real protocol negotiation, resource/socket init, set-up acknowledge, or resource release. For instance, when speaking "TCP" as illustrated in Chapter 4, the port numbers are fixed by the supported_protocols attributes. A file system cannot change the port it would like to use on a per transfer request basis. This can be restrictive to allowing multiple transfers to happen in parallel or determining what file's data just came in on a socket. I am suggesting that an approach similar to the one used in the Audio/Video Stream specification be used. In this case an endpoint object would be established to represent each end of the file transfer. There is the opportunity for simple negotiation, such as picking protocols and port numbers. The IDL in the A/V Stream spec is far too heavy-weight for ftam/ftp but the concepts used for connection set-up and management are relevant. Just using a few of the A/V flow/end-point operations like set_peer, go_to_listen, and connect_to_peer would be sufficient. At OOC, we have begun experimenting with IDL that supports the notion of transfer `endpoints.' A different type of endpoint is created for each type of protocol, so matched protocol (such as TCP) endpoints talk to each other. And a CORBA endpoint is defined so two file systems can always transfer if they share no other common protocols. Cheers, Ted -- Ted McFadden tmcf@ooc.com.au Object Oriented Concepts Inc. - An IONA Company http://www.ooc.com Suite 4, 8 Martha St. +61-7-3324-9633 Camp Hill, Brisbane, 4169, QLD. Australia