Re: MacIP and the Evil NBP Proxy ARP

[Christopher Ranch <[e-mail]>]

Hi Y'all,

John Veizades wrote:

> John Norstad wrote:
> >8) The only use of NBP in the protocol would be the registration by
> >gateways of their "name:IPGATEWAY@zone" NVE. Hosts would continue to locate
> >gateways via NBP lookups of the form "=:IPGATEWAY@zone". The "name" part of
> >the gateway NVE can be anything the administrator desires. There is no need
> >for it to be the dotted-decimal IP address of the gateway.
> 
> I would like to differ with this opinion.  There are many host which use
> the MacIP protocol without benefit of a gateway.  These hosts use TCP/IP to
> communication between themselves using NBP ARP to find the ATalk address of
> their peer.  If you remove this from the protocol this would not work.

	I'm really confused by this.  John Norstad talks about the [lack of]
	need for the MacIP gateway's NVE name to be its dotted decimal IP 
	address.  Then John Veizades talks about MacIP host to MacIP host
	operation without MacIP gateway intervention.  So why would a MacIP
	gateway issue have anything to do with a MacIP host to host issue?
	What will break?  [grabbing for the tylenol...]

> It is the case that if a host is using a gateway it should first try to use
> the gateway to communicate with its peer.  It would only use the NBP ARP
> mechanism if the gateway does not respond.

	Is this how MacTCP works?  What about if it's off [sub]net?  The
	same [sub]net?

> In looking at the problems addressed in this protocol those that are
> interested should look at the work done by the DHCP group since the address
> assigning mechanism is very similar.  DHCP also adds the lease time
> semantic on assigned addresses and has a solution for the multiple server
> case.
> 
> The specification for DHCP can be found on sol.bucknell.edu
> /dhcwg/draft-ietf-dhc-protocol-march.ps and .txt by anonymous ftp of
> course.

	Thanks for the pointer.  I'll take a look...

> John...

	Chris Ranch