Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 05:14:17 +0200 From: Eivind Eklund <eivind@yes.no> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: brian@awfulhak.org, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: why /var/log/ppp.log Message-ID: <19980514051417.25127@follo.net> In-Reply-To: <199805140251.TAA03936@usr08.primenet.com>; from Terry Lambert on Thu, May 14, 1998 at 02:51:14AM %2B0000 References: <19980514001550.53205@follo.net> <199805140251.TAA03936@usr08.primenet.com>
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On Thu, May 14, 1998 at 02:51:14AM +0000, Terry Lambert wrote: > > > Hey, speaking of names, how about renaming (over time) the rather > > > ill-named -alias flag to -nat? :-) > > > > Possibly a good idea, due to the general confusion over terminology. > > Aliasing is only a subset of the possible NAT forms. The library > > should definately have been named libnat, at least :-) > > If you want to use the name it's called in the RFC's, you should > use the term "transparent proxy" or just "proxy" for short. 'Transparent proxy' is not what we've got. We've got NAT - see RFC1631. I hope we'll get transparent proxy support in libalias, but it isn't too high on my list of priorities at the moment. > The term "NAT" is generally meaningless, and doesn't imply some things > that it should, while at the same time imply some things it shouldn't. > It's too "fuzzy" to be truly meaningful. I'm not sure I follow you - for me, NAT is a very specific technology: Translating packets in transit to do manipulation of the address space. Transparent proxy, on the other hand, is a technology that re-assemble a stream (the easiest way of getting correct results for FTP/IRC(/CVSup?)) and then do a separate connection for that stream. I can see the reasons for letting the definition for 'transparent proxy' flow to include the 'alias-to-single-address' versions of NAT (because it gives the exact same results if done properly), but I can't see how 'NAT' is fuzzy. Help me? Eivind. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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