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From: "Allen Smith" <easmith@beatrice.rutgers.edu>
Message-Id: <9806051228.ZM15866@beatrice.rutgers.edu>
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 12:28:11 -0400
In-Reply-To: "John S. Dyson" <dyson@FreeBSD.ORG>     "Re: kernfs/procfs questions..." (Jun  4,  7:05pm)
References: <199806050005.TAA00859@dyson.iquest.net>
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To: dyson@FreeBSD.ORG, nate@mt.sri.com (Nate Williams)
Subject: Documenting sysctls (was: Re: kernfs/procfs questions...)
Cc: net@FreeBSD.ORG, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
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On Jun 4,  7:05pm, John S. Dyson (possibly) wrote:
> Nate Williams said:
> > > > Do I have permission to start removing sysctl's that aren't
> > > > documented/used?
> > > > 
> > > No, in fact, I specifcally suggest that if you do, then you'll
> > > be obstructing progress on the project.
> > 
> > I specifically suggest that undocumented sysctls are *NOT* progress.
> > (BTW, what exactly is specifically suggest supposed to mean.  Is it like
> > 'strong suggest', or 'strongly feel'?)
> > 
> I suggest that you are welcome to document the sysctl's.  Since you
> seem to be able to choose which ones are valid, and which ones are
> not, you can certainly document them.  Please don't decline my
> request, because I'll have to end up fixing any of your breakage,
> and it is terribly wasteful of both of our time.
> 
> BTW, please don't waste my time.  If you want sysctl better documented,
> then there is a nice project for you!!!  I'll even feed answers
> to your questions for you to fill in the fields.

Umm... while everyone's talking about documenting sysctls, would
somebody mind explaining exactly what proxyall does? From reading over
the source code, I _think_ that this is what happens, but I'm not sure:

	A. If the machine receives an arp request for an IP address
	   that's not one of its, and
	B. the arp request isn't from one of its interfaces, and
	C. there isn't an arp table entry saying it's supposed to
	   broadcast something specific for an arp request for that IP
	   address, and
	D. the proxyall sysctl is on, and
	E. it knows how to route to the IP address in question, and
	F. the route doesn't go out the same interface the arp request
	   was received on, then
	G. it replies with the ethernet address of the interface the
	   arp request was received on as the ethernet address to send
	   stuff for that IP address to.

If this is indeed the case, then putting documentation to this effect
somewhere would be nice. With this and IP Filter's transparent
forwarding capability, it appears possible to use a FreeBSD box as a
L2-filtering-bridge, which would be quite nice.

	Thanks,

	-Allen

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