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Date:      Fri, 27 Oct 1995 13:40:39 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Julian Elischer <julian@ref.tfs.com>
To:        supervisor@alb.asctmd.com
Cc:        jhay@mikom.csir.co.za, hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: IPX feedback request -Reply
Message-ID:  <199510272040.NAA02727@ref.tfs.com>
In-Reply-To: <s0909925.002@alb.asctmd.com> from "supervisor@alb.asctmd.com" at Oct 27, 95 08:30:36 am

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I saw some of the messages on the "freebsd-commit" mailing list
concerning the IPX stuff. Julian, thank you for your time.

Some goals which I think may merit further attention:

1. SPX requires further testing. I have not ever written an application that
actually tests the implementation. Two programs should be written-the
first generates packets of known content and sends them. The second
receives packets and checks them for known content. It must be
determined that packets are received in the exact order that they were
sent. Following this, random breaks in the transmission line should be
introduced so that the transmission recovery mechanism can be checked.
The SPX connection must be terminated correctly to both programs OR
recover as if there were not a problem with the transmission line.

2. Modification of the libc/net/get* routines to support multiple address
families, especially for look up of hosts and networks in files located in
/etc. DNS routines should not be touched. I forget which man page
suggests that this is possible, but all of these routines deal EXCLUSIVELY
with AF_INET. This is kind of bogus. Example, if I want to enter IPX type
addresses in /etc/hosts, I should be able to...

3. IPXrouted should be enhanced to support (for LAN to WAN issues):
  a. command line tuneable RIP/SAP rebroadcast timeouts
  b. "directed broadcast" of RIP/SAP information across routers
  c. command line tuneable for omission of RIP or SAP information?
  d. look at the Novell NLSP stuff concerning RIP/SAP for other ideas

4. IPX compatible SNMP daemon. I like some of the tools available that use
SNMP over IPX to collect information from remote nodes. Anyone know
where to get low level implementation details on this kind of stuff? White
papers?

5. Port Samba to make use of the IPX transport. Windows 3.11 and
Windows 95 use this protocol as a default one after installation. I think it
would be cool to use FreeBSD as a "server" for these type of machines...
Most of the code already exists, and this would be a great way to ring
out the IPX/SPX implementation. (Hidden agenda--Windows NT has nice
network connectivity, lets design some of these features back into our
favorite brand of Unix... ;-)

6. After IPX has been fixed, maybe we should check into merging the
netns directory into netipx (or the other way around) and eliminate one of
the directories. These two protocols are pretty similar, there are a few
fundamental differences in RIP, SAP, and other protocols using the IPX
transport, but these issues should probably not be handled by the IPX
transport driver. Does anyone use really use netns?







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