Re: misc/39327

[Jukka Ruohonen <jruohonen%iki.fi@localhost>]

The following reply was made to PR misc/39327; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Jukka Ruohonen <jruohonen%iki.fi@localhost>
To: gnats-bugs%NetBSD.org@localhost
Cc: 
Subject: Re: misc/39327
Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 20:39:55 +0300

 On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 01:14:03PM -0400, Martin S. Weber wrote:
 > 
 > That makes me think: There exists a mapping of domain parameters to
 > a set of usable protocol parameters. Look at protocols(5) (and thus
 > at /etc/protocols) to find out which. But /etc/protocols only documents
 > the possible protocols at all. Now if /etc/protocols had also a field
 > for the "communication domain in which communication is to take place",
 > there would be no doubt about usable protocols. Take "icmp 1 ICMP" for
 > instance. If it read "icmp 1 ICMP PF_INET" instead, it would be obvious
 > that icmp is not for PF_INET6. Actually even expanding the comment instead
 > of adding a new field to improve documentation on where this procotol 
 > "belongs" would improve the situation in my opinion.
 
 Sure, I understand now and think you are right. But then again, someone
 would need to push this to IANA. But note that there is a quite extensive
 list of RFCs and other references in /etc/protocols in case a reader really
 wonders if IPv4 ICMP can be used with IPv6, and so forth.
 
 > AF_ ? The socket(2) man page only talks about PF_ constants (besides, I
 > personally never understood THEIR distinction but that is outside the scope
 > of this PR.)
 
 Yes, that seems to go very deep into the history :-). (At least as mentioned
 by Stevens, Fenner and Rudoff (2003, pp. 98-99) in their UNP.)
 
 - Jukka.