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Date:      Wed, 10 Jan 1996 12:44:12 -0500
From:      dennis@etinc.com (dennis)
To:        Nate Williams <nate@rocky.sri.MT.net>
Cc:        hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: pppd vs ijppp
Message-ID:  <199601101744.MAA24543@etinc.com>

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>> What are the real advantages of ijppp over pppd, and is anyone integrating
>> them into the kernel pppd? Its pretty stupid to run ppp in user space just to
>> get a couple of intiialization features.
>
>Actually, in the long run it would be nice to get the bugs fixed in the
>user-land version.  I would *prefer* the user-land version to the kernel
>version except for it's instability, and I don't have time to track down
>the bugs in it since the application is critical to my work, and pppd
>works.
>
>Bloating the kernel with the features of user-land ppp is not a good
>thing.  Also, it's *very* easy to debug the user-land version where the
>kernel version is *much* harder to debug.  No reboots necessary. ;)

This is ridiculous....memory is memory and you use more with a user level
implementation than a kernel version. If your not using it its optioned out...so
who cares? You arguably need just as much kernel code to provide the necessary
informatoin to the user level code (if done properly) then if you did it in
the kernel.

ioctls were designed for setting options, and the options can still be
largely managed
in user space. Good data communications requires good reporting, and information
availability is substantially better and more efficient in the kernel, not
to mention the 
performance penalty of a user level implementation.

Improving kernel debugging is not difficult...we debug much more complicated
things
than ppp within the kernel space. The fact than pppd debugging is poor is
not a good
reason to adulterate the entire mechanism.

Good datacomm should focus on the 99% and not the 1%. Imagine if you moved
ethernet 
processing to user space to improve debugging?

dennis
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