UniTree Name Server internals

The UniTree Name Server (UNS) is one of several servers which make up the UniTree storage system. The Name Server is responsible for mapping names to capabilities Names are generally human readable ASCII strings of any length. Capabilities are unique 256-bit identifiers that point to files, directories, or symbolic links. The Name Server implements a UNIX style hierarchical directory structure to facilitate name-to-capability mapping. The principal task of the Name Server is to manage the directories which make up the UniTree directory structure. The principle clients of the Name Server are the FTP Daemon, NFS and a few UniTree utility routines. However, the Name Server is a generalized server and will accept messages from any client. The purpose of this paper is to describe the internal workings of the UniTree Name Server. In cases where it seems appropriate, the motivation for a particular choice of algorithm as description of the algorithm itself will be given.