Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!purdue!gatech!dcatla!dnwcv
From: dnwcv@dcatla.UUCP (William C. VerSteeg)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Vendor Support of Source Quench
Message-ID: <5667@dcatla.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jun 88 13:38:14 GMT
Reply-To: dnwcv@dcatla.UUCP (William C. VerSteeg)
Organization: DCA Inc., Alpharetta, GA
Lines: 23


I recently spoke with a vendor of host based TCP/IP software. I was trying
to determine the company's support of ICMP Source Quench. The package they
sell ignores ICMP Source Quench messages. It doesn't lower offerred 
traffic when receiving a source quench and doesn't send a source quench 
when its buffer space is running out. I requested a fix for this problem. 
We discussed some of the ongoing work in the field of congestion control
and its impact on the usability of source quench mechanisms. 

He informed me that the company had no plans to implement source quench support
due to the large number of implementations that also ignore source quench. 

This brings me to my point. How many of the currently popular
packages handle Source Quench in a reasonable fashion? 
Is it worth my efforts to chase this vendor and force him to conform to 
specifications or is it a mute point due to a general lack of conformance 
to the ICMP spec by most of the available packages? We definately require
a traffic limiting mechanism. I don't know if the  ongoing congestion control
work being done obviates the need for source quench support, but I doubt that
it does.


Bill VerSteeg