🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <334@taniwha.UUCP> paul@taniwha.UUCP (Paul Campbell) writes:
>
>A few possibilities come to mind for workstations:
>
>	1) maintain an RTMP cache just like a router (you don't need to
>	   keep a ZIP table if you still have the routers generate the NBP
>	   lookups), this is not easy code to write and the tables can end
>	   up using large amounts on memory on some of those giant nets
>
>	2) Whenever you receive a packet from another net remember what
>	   the source net number and the LAP node number were, put them in
>	   the cache, use the RTMP packets from that LAP address to keep them
>	   valid (to validate the bridge lap address and to validate that
>	   it's still the fastest way to get to it [in case of the config
>	   changes]). Use the cache entries on transmission, if one isn't
>	   present then fall back to the old method (the reply will fill a
>	   cache entry) [maybe you don't put NBP response packets in the cache]
>
>	3) Just watch the RTMP packets and remember the one that is closest
>	   to the most nets, that way you turn your 50% more towards 70% etc
>	   (unless you really are right in the middle of things), or the one
>	   that is closest to the most nets that you recently sent packets
>	   to etc etc
>
>Well there's a start, and we didn't touch the protocol, personally I
>like #2 falling back to #3, any other suggestions?
>
>
	I would point out that the conventional wisdom in the TCP/IP
community is that, for a variety of reasons, workstations (or
non-routers) should not snoop on or participate in router protocols,
like RTMP.  Of course, the TCP/IP community is still grappling with a
router discovery protocol and dealing with multi-homed
(multi-interface) hosts.

	I would think that there might be a clean way to ascertain the
router to use during the process of name lookup.  I think there should
also be an independent router announcement protocol for
implementations that want to keep a list of active routers for the
purpose of selecting a default if the name lookup protocol is
insufficient in all cases.  Have to give some careful thought to
direct versus thru-router name lookup, etc, but that's all part of the
issue of dynamic router and internet topology discovery and what part
of that process belongs in the "host"s.