Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!mit-eddie!bloom-beacon!LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU!mouse
From: mouse@LARRY.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re:  /etc/protocols (was Re: Xkernel can't find NFS mounted directories)
Message-ID: <9012061239.AA28341@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Date: 6 Dec 90 12:39:25 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 31

>> 4.1 needs a file in /etc called protocols containing the following
>> stuff:
...
>> Now, why in EARTH put that in a file?  IS sun afraid that the
>> protocol numbers are about to change.....????????

> Neither are TCP and UDP port numbers, but they're in a file
> (actually, an NIS map these days) as well.

> One benefit of putting all these things in configuration files is
> that it makes it easy to debug new implementations.  While debugging
> you might not want to bother or be bothered by other implementations,
> so you could edit /etc/protocols to specify your own protocol number.

This is a valid argument for a research machine, where debugging new
implementations is a normal or nearly-normal state.

Unfortunately, Sun doesn't make research machines (or rather, doesn't
sell research systems - the machine itself is not the problem).

It does seem a trifle silly to list all the protocol numbers in a file
like that, I agree.  (For TCP and UDP port numbers, you are perhaps
right as far as the universal port numbers, like smtp or echo, go, but
Suns aren't (yet) such anti-research systems that it's impractical to
play with creating your own network services, so *that* file is
actually useful.)

					der Mouse

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