Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd
From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Sockets/STREAMS/TLI ?
Message-ID: <632:Jul2821:58:2590@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 28 Jul 90 21:58:25 GMT
References: <36200002@inmet>
Organization: IR
Lines: 28

In article <36200002@inmet> ma@inmet.inmet.com writes:
> I am building an application which needs to do RPC-like processing
> across a SUN network, but I cannot use SUN's rpc facility itself;
> I need to build mine from lower-level components.
> 
> The question is, WHICH set of lower-level components should I use?

(Bias alert.) The answer is, my auth package (c.s.unix volume 22). As
the README says:

  This package provides two benefits. The first is a secure user-level
  implementation of RFC 931, the Authentication Server; unless TCP itself
  is compromised, it is impossible to forge mail or news between computers
  supporting RFC 931. The second is a single, modular interface to TCP.
  Programs written to work with authtcp and attachport don't even need to
  be recompiled to run under a more comprehensive network security system
  like Kerberos, as long the auth package is replaced.

You should have no trouble compiling and running auth on any Sun. Not
only will you get the authentication of RFC 931 now, but your programs
will be perfectly portable to any system supporting the straightforward
interface. auth could be implemented on top of TLI, for example.

Warning: auth only provides a modular interface for two-party stream
communication. If you need multi-party or datagram communication, you'll
have to do some extra work.

---Dan