MLDEV

The “ML Device” protocol is a remote file system invented for the
PDP-10 MIT Incompatible Timesharing System. It may have been the very
first transparent networking filesystem.

Build

Install libfuse-dev, then type make.

Usage

Create a mount point directory, and then mount an ITS file system like
this:

sudo ./mount.mldev <hostname> <mountpoint>

I haven’t bothered to figure out how FUSE works with user permissions,
so do everything as root.

Unmount like usual, with umount <mountpoint>.

FUSE accepts a number of command line options in between the host
name and mount point. A useful one is -f which makes FUSE run in
the foreground and print debug messages.

Another way is to add the file system to /etc/fstab:

hostname mountpoint mldev rw 0 0

Note that for this to work, mount.mldev must be installed somewhere
mount can find it, e.g. in /sbin.

Bugs

• Doesn’t work with binary files. Only text files for now.
• Doesn’t care about file metadata like file length, timestamps, or author.
• Doesn’t work fully with / embedded in file names.