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From: minshall@OPAL.BERKELEY.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc
Subject: Re: Berzerkeley sockets
Message-ID: <8711100542.AA18640@opal.berkeley.edu>
Date: Tue, 10-Nov-87 00:41:56 EST
Article-I.D.: opal.8711100542.AA18640
Posted: Tue Nov 10 00:41:56 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Nov-87 05:31:32 EST
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Organization: The ARPA Internet
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What kind of other network interfaces are there?

Well, I think that the "User/TCP Interface" specified in section
3.8 of the TCP specification provides a fairly clean interface,
at least for a first cut.

I believe that one could, on top of this interface, implement
sockets (including the horrible treatment of urgent data which
is standard in 4.2, and the default in 4.3 unless SO_OOBINLINE
is specified).  One possible existence proof of this is that (I
believe) the UB smart TCP board presents, essentially, this
interface to the PC, and UB has code (a "socket library") which
looks like sockets to the application program, and talks
to this interface (or something very similar) on the other side.

The only thing I *know* that I would like, in addition to this
interface, is the ability to get a "TCP-to-User" message when
some item of "STATUS" has changed.  This can keep an application,
trying to implement select(2), from having to keep polling the
TCP.  (Ah, yes, one needs to know the local IP address sometimes -
but that doesn't fall right out of the "socket interface" either.)

I agree thoroughly with the sentiments that we don't want to get
into the religious wars which would ensue from trying to design
a new interface; I agree just as strongly with the sentiment
that the "socket interface" is not a standard - most vendors
describe their interface as a "socket-style interface".  I
don't want environments which are "easy to port socket-style
code to"; I want environments which are binary compatible.

What it really comes down to, I think, is that some sort of effort
would need to be funded by some power-that-be.  Maybe the ULANA
people (who, I believe, underwrote the NETBIOS/TCP effort) would
be interested?  It's a lot of work, and work isn't free (not even
for universities).

Greg Minshall