Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!sgi!rpw3@rigden.wpd.sgi.com From: rpw3@rigden.wpd.sgi.com (Rob Warnock) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: How do you get a ENet Addr? Message-ID: <65427@sgi.sgi.com> Date: 28 Jul 90 02:53:36 GMT References: <488@eng3.UUCP> <1990Jul25.090203.1@rogue.llnl.gov> <1990Jul25.184017.192@tandem.com> <65311@sgi.sgi.com> <1990Jul27.232750.22472@tandem.com> Sender: rpw3@rigden.wpd.sgi.com Reply-To: rpw3@sgi.com (Rob Warnock) Distribution: na Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA Lines: 46 In article <1990Jul27.232750.22472@tandem.com> kevinr@Tandem.COM writes: +--------------- | In article <65311@sgi.sgi.com>, rpw3@rigden.wpd.sgi.com (Rob Warnock) writes: | |> In article <1990Jul25.184017.192@tandem.com> kevinr@Tandem.COM writes: | |> | address. We still allow the end user to change the current address, | |> | but the software will never let him pick a globally assigned | |> | style address. | |> +--------------- | |> as "the" host address, and that value is written back into *all* of the | |> network interfaces. | |> Clearly, your software restriction would prevent this. | Not really, as the customer can set ther MAC address to any locally admin'ed | address they choose. +--------------- But that completely negates all of the advantages of the known-unique globally-administered addresses which come "for free" on each network interface! If you allow setting network physical addresses to any value [which, by the way, nearly all of the hardware interfaces do], no customer ever has to assign/hand_out/dis-ambiguate XNS addresses. All of the addresses on all of the network boards on all of the hosts in his internet are globally unique, and the "host addresses" that get used are merely a subset of the globally-unique numbers available on each host. [Single-interface hosts will default to the GU MAC address of their single interface, as usual.] In what you propose, all of a sudden the *customer* is responsible for not assigning any duplicate addresses ANYWHERE IN HIS/HER INTERNET, which may span half the world and, which is worse, many different administrative boundaries within the curtomer's own organization. To me, this is a *major* loss of convenience and reliability, simply because someone in your company decided that "customers [really, customer's network software] can't be trusted to do it right." PLEASE! We don't need any more "well-meaning" paternalism! -Rob ----- Rob Warnock, MS-9U/510 rpw3@sgi.com rpw3@pei.com Silicon Graphics, Inc. (415)335-1673 Protocol Engines, Inc. 2011 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94039-7311