Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 14 Jan 2000 14:13:45 -0500 | From | Richard Guy Briggs <> | Subject | Re: 2.4 and Strong Cryptography... |
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On Fri, Jan 14, 2000 at 06:50:25PM +0100, Marc Mutz wrote: > Richard Guy Briggs wrote: > <snip> > > > All those "crypto goodies" like CIPE, ppdd and IPSec (FreeS/WAN) are > > > a mixture of a (usually small) kernel module and a userspace daemon > > > (or setup tools). So you need to download the package anyway, > > > because userspace and kernel are so closely coupled. Look at ISDN, > > > look at pcmcia support and how long it took to include it into the > > > mainstream kernel. Still the most part of the users download the > > > external packages. > > > > So what you are saying is that IPv4 should not be included because > > there are userspace tools that need to be downloaded to be able to use > > those features such as ifconfig(8), route(8), arp(8), ip(8), > > ipfwadm(8), ipportfw(8), ipautofw(8), ipchains(8), etc... Taking it > > to the sublime -- lets not include the kernel because you would need > > to download bash(1)! There may be other issues, but I don't think > > this one is particularly compelling. > > > <snip> > > Needing userspace is not the point. Userspace being so closely coupled > that I frequently need to re-compile the userspace part when I upgrade > the kernel part within a series (say 2.2) is the problem. It was the > reason, why raid-0.90 didn't make it into 2.2.12. It is possibly (one of > the) reason why pcmcia took so long as 2.4 to be included in the kernel > proper and why up to 2.2.1[23] all the users of ISDN ignored the isdn > drivers in the kernel and went for the cvs version.
Now I understand your objection! Yes, I would agree that it does need settling a bit. In particular, we are getting ready to ditch the netlink I/F in favour of PF_KEYv2 sockets instead, which are portable, whereas netlink sockets only exist on Linux, IIRC. We are at the point where all keying information is using the new I/F, but policy information is still using netlink. I hope to have this complete in the next two weeks. After that, only the debug switches need to be converted and I am still uncertain whether to use sysctl or non-standard PF_KEYv2 extensions. The fact that sysctl is being streamlined like /proc has recently been makes it more attractive, but then, they are not portable, but neither are non-standard PF_KEYv2 extensions either...
> Have you recompiled util-linux since 2.2.1? IMO the kernel<->userspce > interface needs settling before anything can make it into a stable > kernel. But that's only my opinion, YMMV.
No, I haven't, because it is stable, but that is *supposed* to be the nature of 2.[0246].xx kernels. The 2.[1357] kernels are supposed to be development kernels, so that type of thing would be appropriate there.
> Marc
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