To: perot@pallas.amp.uni-hannover.de
Subject: Re: [5] TCP patch for STiK 2                                                    


On Mon, 24 Feb 1997 11:29:38 Peter Rottengatter <perot wrote: 
>
>On Sat, 22 Feb 1997, Ronald Andersson wrote:

----- snip ----- re: the need of IP-masquerading

>Misunderstanding. I meant you can have a network with several machines up 
>and running, and at the same time being connected to Internet. If you 
>refrain from connecting from any machine that is not the one with the 
>modem to the Internet, everything works. The machine with the modem can 
>even have (TCP or UCP) connections to other local machines at the same 
>time as connections to Internet, that works too already.

Yes of course.


>What I was saying is that this fulfills a lot of wishes I, for instance, 
>had for my local network. This means that at this stage I would be 
>satisfied to have this, and work on masquerading, which is the full game, 
>later.

Agreed.


----- snip ----- re: single port Internet access initially acceptable
>> 
>> Yep, so perhaps I was a bit over-eager, but then it is an exciting subject.
>
>Certainly, and thus I would not advocate putting it on ice. I'm only 
>saying that efforts to actually implement anything on this should be 
>delayed, until STiK 2 is thoroughly tested and debugged as a STiK 1 
>replacement, with possibly the mentioned restricted local connections.

Agreed.


>> >Put in another way : Before it can be _released_ as a STiK 1 replacement.
>> 
>> I assume you mean beta release here though.
>
>Can be discussed of course. I expect masquerading quite a little effort, 
>which will not work without problems on the first try. This means STiK2 as 
>a STiK1 replacement is ready, and another improvement might take a little 
>while before it's ready. Under such circumstances I'd release the STiK2 
>to public without masquerading, possibly with a README saying that 
>masquerading is under way, which would be an upgrade.

Agreed.


>I expect people if they see the improvements in STiK2 they'd start once 
>more to eagerly looking for upgrades ;-)

Yes, and in fact the ongoing discussions on networking in general (esp Midi),
may also generate some renewed interest in STiK 2.  (I hope so anyway.)


----- snip ----- re: Me possibly writing a resolver
>
>Ok. Your job is eased a little as resolver code can be debugged using 
>STiK1 (for a usable TCP I mean). I'll assemble a few things enabling you 
>to start on the resolver.

Thanks, I'm looking forward to it.  Hopefully I will be able to manage it
(though I cant promise this yet), but at any rate it will be interesting
to try.


>> As for being 'first', I am afraid we'll have to settle for being the first
>> to do it under TOS, since Linux does have masquerading (being a unix clone).
>> (Hmmm, I wonder if their sources would be useful for us (if possible to find)).
>
>Are you sure about this ? AFAIK Linux has masquerading built in deep into 
>the kernel, which had to be completely rewritten for the 68k release. So 
>I'd not at all be surprised if the 68k version does not support masquerading.
>But anyway, not being the first is not such a terrible thing, as seen by 
>olympia sportsmen. ;-)

The first time I ever heard of IP masquerading (honestly) was when Martin M
described how it worked on his TT running Linux.  So evidently they did
complete that rewrite successfully with the rest of the kernel.

I actually downloaded the latest Linux version with a view to installing it
on an 'extra' harddisk I don't really need normally.  Phew, over 7 Megs...!
And I do mean in archived form (tar.gz).  And of course it can't even be
unpacked on a drive without long names (but I can use MagiC's ramdisk :-).
That download took a while with my 14k4 bps modem...

Btw: I had bad luck unpacking your STiK 2 dialer archive.
     One of the subfolders came up empty...
     So I never got the REQUEST stuff...
     I could see it was there, but it wouldn't unpack.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regards:  Ronald Andersson                     mailto:dlanor@oden.se
                                               http://www.oden.se/~dlanor
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
