Date: Fri, 22 Aug 1997 16:46:18 -0700 From: Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com> To: wollman@freebsd.org Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: promblems with non IP protocols Message-ID: <33FE24CA.52BFA1D7@whistle.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Garrett, I've been looking at the problem of address families for which netmasks just "don't work". (e.g. appletalk) I have basically come to the conclusion (as I mentionned to you before) that there needs to be a way for address families to specify some methods for handling their addresses. e.g. how to decide it an address is on an interface or not. There are a couple of 'style' questions though that I'd like your (and in fact any-one's) advise on. 1/ I prefer if it is a dynamic thing and not dependent on a "#ifdef NETATALK" in the kernel. Is this reasonable? (I'd like to work towards loadable protocols) 2/ If it's loadable, and a pointer to a method, then WHERE is the method stored, so that it can be found? there are several options. i) An extra entry in the domain struct (along with dom_externalize() and similar things, but there is no easy way to index this as there is no AF_XXX->protocol lookup array (I might be wrong) ii) add and entry to the ifaddr struct. there is already the protocol dependent rtrequest. adding a protocol dependent address handler (can do compares, and other operations, given the appropriate args) doesn't seem like too much of a leap. iii) An AF_XXX indexed array.. there is already such an array to look up the appropriate routing table for a protocol.. I tend to think a hybrid might be acceptable.. e.g. add a pointer from the ifaddr to the domain and add a new pointer from the domain, to the address method. for that matter, if we hung the routing tables from the domain, then the current routing table index array could be used to find the domain (and hence the routing info), when indexed by the AF_XXX entry, and get a convenient place to hang a number of these things. what are your thoughts? who else would you suggest polling? have an address for Rich Stevens? kieth Skower? Mike karels? etc?
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?33FE24CA.52BFA1D7>