Re: Lua as a scripting language in NetBSD

[Antti Kantee <pooka%cs.hut.fi@localhost>]

On Sun Oct 18 2009 at 14:06:25 -0400, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 08:29:02PM +0300, Antti Kantee wrote:
> > 
> > I am opposed to "wishful thinking" additions to the base system without
> > any real evidence of the actual usefulness.
> 
> You want an example application?  Some of mine are proprietary so I can't
> share their details right now.  But here is one which I think has pretty
> general appeal.  I would like to use Lua, in the kernel, to implement
> stateful application-layer packet filtering and redirection, using our
> existing packet filter hooks and (in some cases) ipfilter's "call" action.
> 
> Lua is fast enough to do this for many small firewalls, far safer than
> using C code, and far more flexible than the canned types of packet
> matchers and actions offered by ipfilter or pf.  And it interfaces neatly
> with C code such that it's easy to write tiny shims which hook it up to
> our network stack using the existing packet filter hooks.
> 
> Basically, I want a small, fast, safe language for data filtering and
> manipulation in the kernel.  Lua is the best candidate I can see right
> now.

Yes, I want an example application.  You gave me the description of an
example application which is quite quite different from what I wanted.
I'm not saying your potential example doesn't sound cool (nor am I saying
that it does ;), I'm just saying that you haven't said anything I didn't
already know from reading prior emails in the thread.