Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!rosemary.Berkeley.EDU!sklower
From: sklower@rosemary.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Sklower)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.proteon
Subject: Re: p4200 routing
Message-ID: <27249@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 25 Dec 88 22:15:08 GMT
References: <8812241440.AA05001@ncnoc.tucc.edu>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: sklower@okeeffe.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Sklower)
Organization: Computer Science Dept., U. C. Berkeley
Lines: 32

In article <8812241440.AA05001@ncnoc.tucc.edu> jrr@NCNOC.TUCC.EDU (Joe Ragland) writes:
](With some editing!)... If one says 'telnet 127.0.0.1'
]to the local host loopback address, CMU-TEK forwards the packets to
](p4200) which then forwards the packets down the default route.
]
]I think the p4200s should discard such packets with an appropriate error
] message.

I do not speak in an official capacity for the 4.3 people, but it is
my strong prejudice that the proteon routers should be doing exactly
what they do now.  It was fairly easy for you to diagnose the problem,
wasn't it?  If the p4200 had discarded the packets, how long would
it have taken you to think about looking at the error logs there?

I'm not sure I would have ever thought about looking off the machine
myself if loopback had (silently) not worked.  [We did have this problem
here once when we were changing some stuff about the way loopback
worked].  If you want somebody to complain about the illegality,
it would seem to me to be the recipient of the bogon, rather than
the forwarder.  (And don't forgot that the the check would be applied
to EVERY packet forwarded.)

[I have the impression that the original intent at Berkeley was to
have the loopback address configurable, rather than cast in stone,
and was something of a local experiment, which is why nobody here
officially applied for a network number for that purpose.  It was
just ``borrowed'', since people here thought it would be a long time
before network number 127 was likely to be assigned.  After some of
the loopback packets escaped onto the arpanet (be it noted from other
places than berkeley itself), other more official raised some sort of
hue and cry about making this all legal]
types raised a hue and cry ]