The design and implementation of the Gecko NFS Web proxy

The World Wide Web uses a naming scheme (URLs), transfer protocol (HTTP), and cache algorithms that are different from traditional network file systems. This makes it impossible for unmodified Unix applications to access the Web; as a result, the Web is only accessible to special Web-enabled applications. Gecko bridges the gap between Web-enabled applications and conventional applications, allowing any unmodified Unix application to access the Web. We developed two prototypes of the Gecko system at the University of Arizona and incorporated the many lessons learned from the first into the second. Minimizing the amount of state was a key goal of the Gecko redesign and the second prototype uses a unique compression technique to reduce server state. Experiments performed on the prototype show that Gecko not only makes the Web accessible to unmodified applications, but does so at a performance that meets or exceeds that of HTTP.