POSIX's "tables of the law"

POSIX's "tables of the law"

[DENIEL Philippe]

Hi,

on many aspects, knowing the POSIX standard and behavior is quite 
important when working on implementing something like NFSv4. There a 
problem occur : if I need information on NFS (whatever version) or any 
"related" protocol (RPCSEC_GSS, ONCRPC, ...) I can easily find a 
document that is the absolute reference to use. But what about POSIX ? I 
must have missed something but I never see such a reference. Do you have 
book references to provide me with about this subject ?

   Regards,

     Philippe

Re: POSIX's "tables of the law"

[Jim Rees]

DENIEL Philippe wrote:

  on many aspects, knowing the POSIX standard and behavior is quite
  important when working on implementing something like NFSv4. There a
  problem occur : if I need information on NFS (whatever version) or
  any "related" protocol (RPCSEC_GSS, ONCRPC, ...) I can easily find a
  document that is the absolute reference to use. But what about POSIX
  ? I must have missed something but I never see such a reference. Do
  you have book references to provide me with about this subject ?

The posix spec situation is confused because there are many different specs
published at different times, and the ones that are most important (like
acls) were never ratified as far as I know, so are still in draft form.
Originally they were ISO specs, which cost big money, which is why you won't
find them on the web.  More recently I think the Open Group has been working
on them, maybe you'll find copies there: www.opengroup.org

Re: POSIX's "tables of the law"

[J. Bruce Fields]

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 07:50:26AM -0400, Jim Rees wrote:
> DENIEL Philippe wrote:
> 
>   on many aspects, knowing the POSIX standard and behavior is quite
>   important when working on implementing something like NFSv4. There a
>   problem occur : if I need information on NFS (whatever version) or
>   any "related" protocol (RPCSEC_GSS, ONCRPC, ...) I can easily find a
>   document that is the absolute reference to use. But what about POSIX
>   ? I must have missed something but I never see such a reference. Do
>   you have book references to provide me with about this subject ?
> 
> The posix spec situation is confused because there are many different specs
> published at different times, and the ones that are most important (like
> acls) were never ratified as far as I know, so are still in draft form.
> Originally they were ISO specs, which cost big money, which is why you won't
> find them on the web.  More recently I think the Open Group has been working
> on them, maybe you'll find copies there: www.opengroup.org

I think you want:

	http://www.unix.org/single_unix_specification/

You have to fill out a form but there's no charge.

Of course you can also write little test programs and such to find out
what other filesystems or platforms do.  No spec is perfect, alas.

--b.