bring back IPX and NCPFS, please!

bring back IPX and NCPFS, please!

[Johannes C. Schulz]

Hello all!

I like to please you to bring back IPX and NCPFS modules to the kernel.
Whyever my admins using Novell-shares on our network which I'm not be
able to use anymore - I'm forced to use cifs instead (and the admins
will kill the cifs-shares in some time), because my kernel (4.18) does
not have support for ncpfs anymore.
Maybe we at my work are not enough people that just for us this
modules will come back, but maybe out there are other people.
Thank you.

Re: bring back IPX and NCPFS, please!

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Fri, 9 Nov 2018 14:23:27 +0100
"Johannes C. Schulz" <enzephalon76@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Hello all!
> 
> I like to please you to bring back IPX and NCPFS modules to the kernel.
> Whyever my admins using Novell-shares on our network which I'm not be
> able to use anymore - I'm forced to use cifs instead (and the admins
> will kill the cifs-shares in some time), because my kernel (4.18) does
> not have support for ncpfs anymore.
> Maybe we at my work are not enough people that just for us this
> modules will come back, but maybe out there are other people.
> Thank you.

Are you willing to sign up to maintain it, test it and fix bugs?

Re: bring back IPX and NCPFS, please!

[Willy Tarreau]

On Fri, Nov 09, 2018 at 02:23:27PM +0100, Johannes C. Schulz wrote:
> Hello all!
> 
> I like to please you to bring back IPX and NCPFS modules to the kernel.
> Whyever my admins using Novell-shares on our network which I'm not be
> able to use anymore - I'm forced to use cifs instead (and the admins
> will kill the cifs-shares in some time), because my kernel (4.18) does
> not have support for ncpfs anymore.
> Maybe we at my work are not enough people that just for us this
> modules will come back, but maybe out there are other people.
> Thank you.

Well, like any code, it requires time and skills. If nobody with the
required skills is available for this anymore, there's no way you'll
get a feature back. However you could always step up to maintain it
yourself if you have the time and are willing to develop your own
skills at it. It's how maintainers change over time for certain parts
of the system, so you have an opportunity here.

Just my two cents,
Willy

Re: bring back IPX and NCPFS, please!

[Johannes C. Schulz]

Hello Willy, hello Stephen

Thankyou for your reply.
But I'm not able to maintain or code these modules. I'm just a bloody
user/webdev. It would be really nice if these modules will find a good
maintainer!

Best regards
Johannes

Am Fr., 9. Nov. 2018 um 17:09 Uhr schrieb Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu>:
>
> On Fri, Nov 09, 2018 at 02:23:27PM +0100, Johannes C. Schulz wrote:
> > Hello all!
> >
> > I like to please you to bring back IPX and NCPFS modules to the kernel.
> > Whyever my admins using Novell-shares on our network which I'm not be
> > able to use anymore - I'm forced to use cifs instead (and the admins
> > will kill the cifs-shares in some time), because my kernel (4.18) does
> > not have support for ncpfs anymore.
> > Maybe we at my work are not enough people that just for us this
> > modules will come back, but maybe out there are other people.
> > Thank you.
>
> Well, like any code, it requires time and skills. If nobody with the
> required skills is available for this anymore, there's no way you'll
> get a feature back. However you could always step up to maintain it
> yourself if you have the time and are willing to develop your own
> skills at it. It's how maintainers change over time for certain parts
> of the system, so you have an opportunity here.
>
> Just my two cents,
> Willy



-- 
Viele Grüße
Johannes C. Schulz

„Programmer - n. [proh-gram-er] an organism that turns caffeine and
pizza into software“

Re: bring back IPX and NCPFS, please!

[Willy Tarreau]

On Fri, Nov 09, 2018 at 06:30:14PM +0100, Johannes C. Schulz wrote:
> Hello Willy, hello Stephen
> 
> Thankyou for your reply.
> But I'm not able to maintain or code these modules. I'm just a bloody
> user/webdev.

That's what we've all claimed before taking over something many years
ago you know :-)  The most important is time and willingness to try to
do it.

You could first look at the latest kernel supporting those, check if
they still used to work fine in your environment (not everyone has
access to these ones anymore), and if so, then try to copy that code
over newer kernels. Sometimes it will not build with an obvious error
that you'll be able to fix by yourself, sometimes it will be harder
and you'll have to ask for help and/or figure API changes in "git log".
After working many hours on this you'll be much more at ease with this
code and you'll possibly be able to make it work on your kernel version.
This is already a huge step because even if you don't consider it as
being in a mergeable state (too hackish, dirty etc), you have the
option to run it as your own patch for a while.

After this you'll seek some more help about the process needed to get
these merged back and to maintain them as long as you estimate you can
(possibly mark it deprecated and keep it as long as you can). And who
knows, given nothing changes in this area these days, maybe it will be
trivial to maintain this FS for another decade and you'll have learned
something fun and useful.

> It would be really nice if these modules will find a good
> maintainer!

Just think again about the advantages you have over many other people :
  - access to the environment
  - real use case for the feature

There's nothing wrong with trying and failing multiple times, even giving
up if you find the task too hard. But giving up before trying is quite
sad in your situation.

Cheers,
Willy