Virtual Harddrive

The goal of this project is to enable a computer to create one or more virtual harddrives. The virdual disk (VDISK) will then be mapped to a drive letter and available to all processes via the drive letter and the usual Windows API calls. The contents for the VDISK will be retrieved over the network via the FTP protocol. Network communication should only take place when an actual event occurs. If a process changes its current directory, issue a CWD. If one lists files, issue a LIST. Etc. Ideally some sort of caching will be used to avoid excess network traffic when, for example, listing directory contents, if this is not already implemented by the system for network drives. Full support must be included for random access to a file's contents (using REST and ABORT) and any other reasonable functionality provided by a normal SMB network drive: the system should see the drive as a fully functional network drive. The underlying communications system - FTP in this case - should be easily replaceable by another protocol such as SFTP, or any proprietary protocol we seem fit to implement. Ideally the drive is implemented as a user-mode filesystem or as a kernel driver for Windows 2000, and is controlled via IOCTLs or other control requests to manage mappings and configuration. The driver or service should also optionally detect the graceful or ungraceful exit of a process - the process that issued an IOCTL or similar control request for the creation of a drive - and remove the corresponding VDISK. For your reference, a commercial product that solves a similar problem - and does a lot more - is WebDrive at www.webdrive.com. A fully functional trial version is downloadable. ## Deliverables 1. Kernel Driver or user mode filesystem service for Windows 2000, XP and Windows Server 2003 and full source code in C/C++. 2. Sample GUI or command-line software for management of said driver or service with full source code in C/C++. 3. Well-commented code is necessary and serves as documentation. Please provide bid requests with: a) Expected development time. b) List similar projects or applicable expertise in the area if not found in your bio. c) Give a description of the approach you're planning to take in solving the problem. I'm not trying to get advice and then solve the problem on our own, so you can be brief, but try to stay informative so that I can evaluate bids properly. d) Please also describe what it would take for you to implement this solution for Windows9x and NT4. This is not a necessity for this project but might be something we'll want to do in the future. If you don't have a Win9x strategy it's not a problem! -------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT -------------------------------------------- Coder, upon delivering the software, will relinquish any intellectual property claims to the deliverables and buyer becomes the sole copyright holder. If, for some reason this is not possible due to copyright laws in Coder's country, Coder grants Buyer the exclusive, transferrable, irrevocable right to use the deliverables or any of its derivatives in its own software or hardware projects for 99 calendar years from the date of delivery. Also, Coder agrees to sign and return to the Buyer a Nondisclosure Agreement and a Transfer of Intellectual Property document drafted and emailed to him by the Buyer before payment is released. ## Platform Client side: Windows 2000 Windows XP Windows Server 2003 Server side: Any standard FTP server. (Coder is NOT required to provide one, but coder most certainly should use one for testing.)