multiple namespaces

[Chris Lindblad <CJL@reagan.ai.mit.edu>]

    Date: 26 June 1987 1056-PDT (Friday)
    From: stanonik@nprdc.arpa

    Sorry if this (undoubtably) has come up before.

    We have two groups (call them red and blue) of machines,
    each group in its own namespace.  (Why not one namespace?
    To protect each group against misadventures in the namespace
    of the other.)  The red machines need to occasionally access
    the blue machines.

    Simple add blue to the searchlist attribute of red's namespace
    object.  Catch-22.  red doesn't have a namespace object for
    blue.  Well, add one.  Gotcha!  red doesn't have a host object
    for blue's server.  Well, add one first, blue|server.  Heh heh!
    red doesn't have a namespace object for blue.  Sounds like zen,
    if you have to ask, don't ask.

Starting off on the namespace server for the red namespace, with it currently
only knowing about the red namespace (no references to blue anywhere).
(Essentially the state right after doing the :Set Site command from a
distribution world)

Do a (neti:find-site :blue), and answer the questions. The machine will now
know about the blue namespace.

Edit the namespace objects for the network red|chaos, and add a nickname
blue|chaos. This tells the namespace system that the chaos network mentioned
in the red namespace is the same chaos network mentioned in the blue
namespace. 

If you use tcp-ip, do the same for the network red|internet.

Add blue namespace to the search path for the red namespace.

Reboot the distribution world load on the namespace server for red, do a "Set
Site" command to the red site, and answer the questions. After the set site,
you can disk save the world.

Namespace can work well if configured well. Here at MIT we have 8 separate
sites, 7 different namespaces, 3 different primary servers, 2 of which
secondary serve each other, and another machine just being a secondary
namespace server. All this to service about 120 Lisp Machines around campus.