Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!aeras!elxsi!beatnix!mre
From: mre@beatnix.UUCP (Mike Eisler)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Dumb question:  ping w/o icmp support?
Message-ID: <932@elxsi.UUCP>
Date: 24 Oct 88 17:38:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: elxsi.932
References: <375@eagle_snax.UUCP> <61558@ti-csl.CSNET>
Sender: news@elxsi.UUCP
Reply-To: mre@beatnix.UUCP (Mike Eisler)
Organization: ELXSI Super Computers, San Jose
Lines: 20

>    In article <527@mks.UUCP: egisin@watmath.waterloo.edu (Eric Gisin) writes:
>    :In article <440@gonzo.UUCP:, daveb@gonzo.UUCP (Dave Brower) writes:
>    :: A number of the machines I use support only the tcp and udp protocols. 
>    
>    You mean they're in violation of the RFC's? :-( ICMP is an integral
>    part of IP, and  it's got to be in there. Presumably you mean there's
			   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>    no user-accessible interface to ICMP services.

It's *got* to be in there? What will happen if I don't implement it?
Will the IP police come for me? Or will God send lighting my way?  I
once implemented a simple UDP and IP for an AT&T 3b15 that was to be
used as an NFS server for a LAN of NFS clients. It worked quite well
without ICMP. I agree that you probably wouldn't want this
implementation on a public network, but it served the customer's
limited purposes.

	-Mike Eisler
	(For the record, I did this before I came to ELXSI, and all of ELXSI's
		operating systems implement ICMP.)