$Id: README,v 1.4 2002/07/02 00:01:59 dm Exp $

SFS (Self-certifying File System) is a secure, global network file
system.  SFS names file systems by public keys.  Every remote file
server is mounted on a self-certifying pathname--a directory of the
form /sfs/LOCATION:HOSTID, where LOCATION is a DNS hostname and HOSTID
is a cryptographic hash of a public key.  This naming scheme allows
for completely decentralized control--anyone can create a file server,
and any user can access any file server from any client.  Various key
management schemes can be built on top of SFS using symbolic links to
map human-readable names to self-certifying pathnames.

SFS should run with little or no modification on any operating system
that supports NFS3.  We have at varoius points run SFS on OpenBSD,
FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, and Digital Unix.  SFS also compiles and runs
under MacOS X, but see the file INSTALL.darwin in the distribution for
more information on this.

This release of SFS should be considered pre-alpha.  Though to-date
SFS has been remarkably stable, the SFS protocols and interface will
change in the future.  Though we will make some effort to maintain
compatibility, we cannot guarantee complete compatibility with future
versions.

More documentation can be found in the SFS info pages in the doc
subdirectory, or at the SFS web site http://www.fs.net/.

Report bugs in the system to <sfsbug@redlab.lcs.mit.edu>.

Send questions, comments, and feature requests to
<sfsdev@redlab.lcs.mit.edu>.  We would like to hear about how people
are using SFS.
