Difference between revisions of "DistOS-2011W Plan 9"

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=Introduction=
=Introduction=


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Plan 9 from Bell Labs (here on referred to simply as Plan 9) is a Distributed Operating system created by the Computing Science Research Center of AT&T Bell Laboratories, Which was also the group that developed Unix, and the C programming language[3]. It was first released in 1993 to various universities, and given a full release to the general public in 1995[3]. The most unique and interesting aspect of Plan 9 is that it represents all system interfaces via the filesystem including things not normally treated as files, like networking and the user interface.[3] That is to say, everything can be treated like a file, and thus can have read and write operations preformed on it. You would for instance, write Data to the network as though it were a file, and another computer would read that data. It was designed to be used in a distributed capacity, with some central computers for computation, a File server and many terminals for access, all of which is treated as one large system. 
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Describe the system(s) that you examined or compared.  Why did you choose them?  Be sure to specify a thesis that you argue in the rest of the document.  Since this is a report the thesis may be relatively weak; however, an appropriate thesis will help the reader understand why did what you did and why you wrote what you wrote.


End with a paragraph outlining the rest of the document.
This report will go through the various aspects of the Plan 9 operating system and it's Distributed Operating system properties. Plan 9 was envisioned with 3 primary goals in mind, and this report will go into detail on each. First, All resources of the system should be represented as files in the filesystem[3]. Second,  Given Application view should see an entire system as belonging to a single coherent namespace.[3] This should be independent of whether or not a given resource is local or remotely accessed. Two given namespaces might not show the same data, but all the data a given application or system sees should be presented as one namespace. Finally, all communication should be done via a standard communication protocol, which is called 9P. This report will also go over how a standard plan9 network would be set up, and my failed attempts to set up a plan9 network myself.  


Be sure to change the titles of the following sections to match the structure of your paper.  In particular, please try to make them less generic.  What follows is just a suggestion; the document will be evaluated in part on the quality of writing, and good writing sometimes requires some flexibility.
=A Standard Plan 9 System=


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Before we go into the details of a Plan 9 system, lets go over how a standard Plan 9 system would be implemented.
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=Systems/Programs in the Space=
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Give an overview of the area you are examining.  What systems/programs are out there?
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=Evaluated Systems/Programs=


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Describe the systems individually here - their key properties, etc.  Use subsections to describe different implementations if you wish.  Briefly explain why you made the selections you did.
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=Experiences/Comparison (multiple sections)=
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In multiple sections, describe what you learned.
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=Discussion=
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What was interesting?  What was surprising?  Here you can go out on tangents relating to your work
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=Conclusion=
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Summarize the report, point to future work.
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=References=
=References=


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[5]http://www.scribd.com/doc/6241731/Plan9-Network-Operating-System
[5]http://www.scribd.com/doc/6241731/Plan9-Network-Operating-System


[6]http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/
[6]http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/
 
[7]http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/net/

Revision as of 15:14, 28 February 2011

Plan 9 from Bell Labs

Introduction

Plan 9 from Bell Labs (here on referred to simply as Plan 9) is a Distributed Operating system created by the Computing Science Research Center of AT&T Bell Laboratories, Which was also the group that developed Unix, and the C programming language[3]. It was first released in 1993 to various universities, and given a full release to the general public in 1995[3]. The most unique and interesting aspect of Plan 9 is that it represents all system interfaces via the filesystem including things not normally treated as files, like networking and the user interface.[3] That is to say, everything can be treated like a file, and thus can have read and write operations preformed on it. You would for instance, write Data to the network as though it were a file, and another computer would read that data. It was designed to be used in a distributed capacity, with some central computers for computation, a File server and many terminals for access, all of which is treated as one large system.


This report will go through the various aspects of the Plan 9 operating system and it's Distributed Operating system properties. Plan 9 was envisioned with 3 primary goals in mind, and this report will go into detail on each. First, All resources of the system should be represented as files in the filesystem[3]. Second, Given Application view should see an entire system as belonging to a single coherent namespace.[3] This should be independent of whether or not a given resource is local or remotely accessed. Two given namespaces might not show the same data, but all the data a given application or system sees should be presented as one namespace. Finally, all communication should be done via a standard communication protocol, which is called 9P. This report will also go over how a standard plan9 network would be set up, and my failed attempts to set up a plan9 network myself.

A Standard Plan 9 System

Before we go into the details of a Plan 9 system, lets go over how a standard Plan 9 system would be implemented.



References

Give references in proper form (not just URLs if possible, give dates of access).

((They'll become real references later))

[1]http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/

[2]http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/installation_instructions/

[3]http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/faq/index.html

[4]http://lsub.org/who/nemo/9.intro.pdf

[5]http://www.scribd.com/doc/6241731/Plan9-Network-Operating-System

[6]http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/

[7]http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/net/