Bug#458819: Re: Bug#458819: ITP: nettee -- a network "tee" program

[Joel Franco <joel.franco@gmail.com>]

> Out of curiosity, besides being a bit easier to remember/type,
> and not requiring the user to choose a port,
> what benefits over combining normal tee and netcat does it have?
> 
> for example:
> 
>     On A:  nettee -in IMAGE -next B -v 31  #full logging
>     On B:  nettee -next C >/dev/hda
>     On C:  nettee -next D >/dev/hda
>     On D:  nettee -next E >/dev/hda
>     On E:  nettee -next F >/dev/hda
>     On F:  nettee         >/dev/hda
> 
> 
> AFAICT, that could be done more or less equivlently as
> On A: nc -q0 B 12345 <IMAGE
> On B: nc -l 12345 | tee >(nc -q0 C 12345) >/dev/hda
> On C: nc -l 12345 | tee >(nc -q0 D 12345) >/dev/hda
> On D: nc -l 12345 | tee >(nc -q0 E 12345) >/dev/hda
> On E: nc -l 12345 | tee >(nc -q0 F 12345) >/dev/hda
> On F: nc -l 12345 >/dev/hda
> 
> (Some stdout redirections to /dev/null could be added, so stdin on the reciving does not come out as stdout on the sending end.)

Hi Joe,

Good question.

IMHO, i think that the main benefits are:

- simplicity: like you already said, the simple command, without complex
  pipe setups like showed in your example comments. You have to agree
  with me that that netcat + tee pipe commands are not trivial. If I
  had known about that commands, i will not have searched for somenthing
  like nettee in Google.
- multiple target: you can specify multiple targets to send the stream
  and not only one. Use the -next hostlist1(,hostlist2(,hostlist3(...)))
  Ok.. ok.. you can make it with a complex pipe; i just can say that
  i will say again the previous argument.
- error check in the stream data: there is a check for transmission
  errors in the code. This is util when there are failed nodes.
- error handling while data is being transmited: there is a lot of
  options to the chain not die if there is a single node failure. In
  your pipe commands, if one node die, the full chain is lost.

In short, simplicity and error check.

If you liked, can you be my sponsor? :)

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