[Juliusz.Chroboczek@pps.jussieu.fr: Re: A comment about RFC 3484 address selection]
Per request of author.
----- Forwarded message from Juliusz Chroboczek <Juliusz.Chroboczek@pps.jussieu.fr> -----
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 17:48:06 +0200
From: Juliusz Chroboczek <Juliusz.Chroboczek@pps.jussieu.fr>
To: Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org>
Cc: 438179@bugs.debian.org, Clint Adams <schizo@debian.org>
Subject: Re: A comment about RFC 3484 address selection
> FWIW, I believe non-subscriber posts are accepted to the list if they're
> sent by way of the BTS.
Let's see how it goes.
>> > RFC 3484 clarifies that the list of addresses returned by getaddrinfo
>> > is in an order that takes into account both the server's and local
>> > preferences.
> no, the software authors cannot expect to rely on addresses to be
> sorted in any particular order;
Software authors can expect that the list is in an arbitrary order
that reflects the local address selection policies.
But that is not my point. If, like many people, you believe that
another semantics is useful, please do not pull an OpenBSD. Stick to
the standard semantics for the standard interface, and define a new
interface for the semantics you find useful.
(In this case, the new interface could be as simple as a new flag
``AI_UNSORTED'' to be passed in hints->ai_flags. But this is not the
right forum to discuss that.)
> RFC 3484 is not a standard.
I'm not sure you are familiar with IETF terminology. 3484 is
a Proposed Standard. So is 2464 (IPv6 over Ethernet).
At any case, that's irrelevant. 3484 is implemented at least by
Glibc, by FreeBSD and Windows (don't know about Mac OS X). Unless you
are willing to do the work to change 3484 (which would imply working
with glibc, *BSD, Microsoft, Apple, etc. for the next few months of
your life), please do not make Debian-specific changes to the
semantics of standard interfaces, but make extensions instead.
Regards,
Juliusz
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