Usage Example 3

HTTPFS/Midnight Commander Snapshots

The Midnight Commander is a directory browser/file manager for Unix-like operating systems [MC]. Its interface is similar to that of John Socha's Norton Commander for DOS as well as to Microsoft Windows' Explorer. The Midnight Commander (MC) can show the contents of two directories at the same time. Besides the file names, the views may display size, type, modification date, and other file attributes. The MC lets you select a group of files from the current view, and perform a number of operations (copy, rename, view, edit, etc) on the current file or selection with one or few keystrokes or mouse clicks.

MC supports remote file access via MCFS, a remote file access protocol that requires that an MCFS server be running on a remote machine. I provide an "adapter" -- an MCFS server linked to a HTTPFS client -- that translates MCFS orders to HTTPFS requests. Thus Midnight Commander gains an ability to access remote files via HTTPFS for free, without any modifications to its code.

The following sample session hopefully shows what good the HTTPFS/MC alliance can do. This is a transcript of an actual session on a Linux/i686 computer, with only hostnames changed.

First we start the Midnight Commander application, mc. This application is included with any Linux distribution (S.u.S.E. distribution, v5 and v6, in our case). The Midnight Commander was not modified in any way.

At the MC prompt, we enter the following directory change command

     cd mc:sol-server/winnt-server:80/
           cgi-bin/admin/MCHFS-server.pl/wwwroot

Left

File

Command

Options

Right

.../admin/MCHFS-server.pl/wwwroot
Name	Size	MTime
/.. /NTAdmin /samples  back1.jpg  default.htm	0 0 0 999 4051	May 18 13:22 Jan 8 1998 Jan 8 1998 May 15 1998 Aug 9 1996
default.htm

~
Name	Size	MTime
/.. /.ncftp /http-vfs *.bash_profile  extfs.ini  lilo1.conf	1024 1024 1024 1555 194 487	May 4 20:12 Dec 18 09:58 May 7 16:56 Mar 30 14:00 Jan 22 16:05 Mar 11 16:20
/..

Hint: VFS coolness: tap enter on a tar file to examine its contents. ~>

1Help

2Menu

3View

4Edit

5Copy

6RenMov

7Mkdir

8Delete

9PullDn

10Quit

The cd command above had MC display the listing of a wwwroot directory on a remote computer winnt-server, which runs IIS. Note the window title in the upper left corner. The mc:sol-server component in the "directory name" above refers to a computer that executes the MC/HTTPFS adapter. The adapter may run on the same computer with MC, or alongside the HTTPFS server, or on some other site.
 

The remote wwwroot directory tree can be navigated as usual. For example, you may move down to the /NTAdmin or /samples directory and climb back. If you select a file -- e.g., default.htm -- and press F3, a viewer is launched to show that remote file's contents.

File: default.htm

Col 0

2715 bytes  [grow]

0%

Microsoft Internet Information Server The Web Server Designed For Windows NT Server _Why not add the [1]latest features to your Internet Information Server?_ [INLINE] [2]Documentation Microsoft. Internet Information Server (IIS) makes it easier to do business with internal or external customers down the hall or around the world. To learn more about how Internet Information Server will help you in your business, browse the IIS [3]online documentation.

1Help

2UnWrap

3Quit

4Hex

5Line

6RxSrch

7Search

8Raw

9Format

10Quit

Ironically an application launched to display default.htm is lynx, a standard (to MC) viewer of HTML content.

We switch to another MC pane and change the directory again:

     cd mc:sol-server/sol-server/cgi-bin/
           admin/MCHFS-server.pl/DeepestRoot/tmp

Again, you can navigate this remote directory as a local filesystem tree. The current file is mailcap. Pressing F4 launches a built-in editor, so you can edit a remote file "inplace" so to speak:

mailcap

[----] 0: 1+ 0= 1/ 34 - *0

/1554b=105

text/x-omf ; echo %{area} \; cp %s metar.omf text/x-omf-advisories ; echo %{area} \; cp %s taf.omf text/x-omf-forecasts ; echo %{area} \; cp %s taf.omf text/x-omf-uar ; echo %{area} \; cp %s rto.omf text/x-omf-btsc ; echo %{area} \; cp %s rto.omf text/x-omf-synop ; echo %{area} \; cp %s rto.omf image/gif ; echo %{AREA}\; cp %s %{CLASS}.gif text/html ; echo %{AREA}\; cp %s %{CLASS}.html text/plain ; echo %{AREA}\; cp %s %{timestamp}.txt */* ; echo \"can't handle %t\"

1Help

2Save

3Mark

4Replac

5Copy

6Move

7Search

8Delete

9PullDn

10Quit

To remind, the right MC pane lists /tmp directory on sol-server. The left pane still shows the contents of a remote directory DocumentRoot/wwwroot on a WinNT host winnt-server. The current file is still mailcap. Pressing F5 initiates copying of that file from one remote computer onto the other:

Copy

Copy file "mailcap" with source mask:

*

[x] using shell Patterns

to:

mc:sol-server/winnt-server:80/cgi-bin/admin/MCHFS-server[^]

[ ] follow sYmlinks  [x] Dive into subdir if exists

[x] preserve Attributes   [ ] Stable Symlinks

[ Ok ]  [ Background ]  [ Cancel ]

This is how the MC window panes look like after the file is copied. Note that one or both remote systems may be outside a firewall.

Left

File

Command

Options

Right

.../admin/MCHFS-server.pl/wwwroot
Name	Size	MTime
/.. /NTAdmin /samples  back1.jpg  default.htm  mailcap	0 0 0 999 4051 1560	May 18 13:22 Jan 8 1998 Jan 8 1998 May 15 1998 Aug 9 1996 May 21 1999
default.htm

...CHFS-server.pl/DeepestRoot/tmp
Name	Size	MTime
/.. /.X11-pipe  SurfaceOb.java  XMLGener~or.java  mailcap =psb_back_socket	1024 512 4912 997 1560 0	May 14 21:33 May 20 17:15 May 17 23:18 May 17 23:18 May 21 1999 May 14 18:23
mailcap

Hint: Tired of these messages? Turn them off from the Options/Layout menu. ~>

1Help

2Menu

3View

4Edit

5Copy

6RenMov

7Mkdir

8Delete

9PullDn

10Quit

 

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Last updated June 25, 1999