From owner-freebsd-current Sun Jan 24 17:11:50 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA19219 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Sun, 24 Jan 1999 17:11:50 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from apollo.backplane.com (apollo.backplane.com [209.157.86.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id RAA19214 for ; Sun, 24 Jan 1999 17:11:49 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dillon@apollo.backplane.com) Received: (from dillon@localhost) by apollo.backplane.com (8.9.2/8.9.1) id RAA09508; Sun, 24 Jan 1999 17:11:19 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dillon) Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 17:11:19 -0800 (PST) From: Matthew Dillon Message-Id: <199901250111.RAA09508@apollo.backplane.com> To: Mike Smith Cc: Garrett Wollman , Mike Smith , current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: sysctl oids (was: Re: kvm question) References: <199901250041.QAA06023@dingo.cdrom.com> Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG :> > not numbered. OID_AUTO is bogus because it perpetuates the numbering :> > of nodes. :> :> Nonsense. There are plenty of contexts in which a number makes far :> more sense than a name -- pretty much anything in any network stack :> other than Chaosnet, for example. If any of us ever make good on the :> threat of SNMP integration, having fixed numerical identifiers will be :> a requirement. : :A number can be a name, but a name not a number. It's obvious that :enumerated objects need numeric identifiers, but not desirable to :mandate the existence of numbers to match all names. : :Unless you want the IANA to step in of course. ... actually, a name *CAN* be a number. You simply compute a 64 bit CRC on the name. The chance of collision is vanishingly small -- for reference: http://www.backplane.com/diablo/crc64.html -Matt Matthew Dillon To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message