On Sun, 1 Sep 1996 14:14:38 -0400 
 der Mouse <mouse@Holo.Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> wrote:

 > Presumably we'd acquire the notion of an ARP socket, akin to the
 > routing socket.  It would have to hear about any Ethernet interfaces
 > going up or down, but that can be handled.

Umm .. I don't see why we'd need an "ARP socket" ... arp(8) already uses 
the routing socket to add and delete ARP entries (they are just routes, 
after all :-)

 > Now, one final note: despite all the above, I don't really like the
 > notion of moving ARP out into user-land.  It feels too much like
 > something that really belongs in the Ethernet device drivers, and was
 > pulled out of them only to improve code sharing...and then got re-used
 > for similar address resolution protocols on other media.

The only thing that really bothers me about moving ARP into userland is 
that one would have to actually start the ARP daemon in order to be able 
to use the network ... not really a biggie, but in some circumstances, 
it's really nice to be able to boot into single-user mode (maybe off of a 
floppy), just ifconfig the interface, and go... I don't want to have to 
rely on an ARP daemon or /usr/sbin/arp ...

...or, did I miss something?

 -- save the ancient forests - http://www.bayarea.net/~thorpej/forest/ -- 
Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
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