Re: let's get small

["Steven M. Bellovin" <smb%cs.columbia.edu@localhost>]

On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 16:03:00 -0600
David Young <dyoung%pobox.com@localhost> wrote:

> Do you have any ideas what can be done to these huge programs in the
> base system to make them small yet reasonably effective on an
> IPv4/IPv6 router/bridge?
> 
>         * wpa_supplicant
>         * hostapd
>         * dig / host
>         * dhclient
>         * dhcpd
>         * netstat
>         * pfctl
>         * tcpdump
> 
Which should be in pkgsrc instead?  (I'd ask "which should be in an
optional syspkg instead, but that would open a different thread...)
My candidates would include hostapd, dhcpd, and tcpdump.  I might
include dig, but I think it's part of bind and hence harder to move.
OTOH, maybe we shouldn't have any of bind in the base system.  Besides,
it's such a generally useful debuggin tool.

My rationale for these choices: they're specialized applications needed
by only a few hosts.

I'm surprised there's no simpler dhclient in pkgsrc.


                --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb