Re: A future for the SSH File Transfer Protocol?

[Barney Wolff <barney%databus.com@localhost>]

On Mon, Nov 12, 2001 at 09:34:31AM -0800, Darren J Moffat wrote:
> 
> To that end there has been proposals to change this area of
> the protocol and augment it with a method for the client to translate
> the opaque uid into a name suitable for display.  The rational being
> that the mapping maybe different on the client than on the server.
 
It strikes me that the whole notion of internal uid is the wrong way
to go and just makes life complex for both client and server.  I'd
propose instead that all conversation be in terms of external
user/group names.  If people really want to optimize directory listings,
something I'm not at all convinced is worthwhile, I'd propose doing
it the way DNS does it, with the first appearance of a name being
the full string and subsequent appearances being back-references.  What
is the point of making the client ever deal with the server's internal
uid's?
-- 
Barney Wolff

"Nonetheless, ease and peace had left this people still curiously tough.
They were, if it came to it, difficult to daunt or to kill; and they were,
perhaps, so unwearyingly fond of good things not least because they could,
when put to it, do without them, and could survive rough handling by grief,
foe, or weather in a way that astonished those who did not know them well
and looked no further than their bellies and their well-fed faces." J.R.R.T.