From owner-freebsd-net@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Jan 11 16:40:56 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 0604FF33 for ; Sat, 11 Jan 2014 16:40:56 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-la0-x236.google.com (mail-la0-x236.google.com [IPv6:2a00:1450:4010:c03::236]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 825311F2C for ; Sat, 11 Jan 2014 16:40:55 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-la0-f54.google.com with SMTP id y1so32227lam.13 for ; Sat, 11 Jan 2014 08:40:53 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=date:from:to:subject:message-id:references:mime-version :content-type:content-disposition:in-reply-to:user-agent; bh=QLcUKmeIdbYJJekd7dpnSjnwOjlFDUYyIqaoIyl2GcI=; b=CgzzAUrRdRVI/NMRIAG8gEWVmpB/mHa1IU5k1vxzVGHiB9EG9WQD/HuZlw9s4ws76g 05po5Wz5p1Bog40sEZEUp78kqnH+ZGpItb1/gpQWUazj8sb+idmChX5uQje46mVWblQ1 ILDSCk4FBLMd5qjk07YInUSRKFJEtk0YxtfwFHB3T0Eip+ql9S/UvgoMJfxIuykX5SkN xj6tne4q8mCu1iMrWnyW1Zua4y3FvzmGHcFO8FpUE+hycpxPgcSbIvlCgeOS05sH8lNS 2FuyYovxa29jOL5sqI0y+hj3cvnGl9L+a1OPdO1XuHDkk0EE9iwYsI5mPOhbvbzMSqLp DQdA== X-Received: by 10.152.143.101 with SMTP id sd5mr6418639lab.26.1389458453602; Sat, 11 Jan 2014 08:40:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from edge.bac.lab ([91.123.18.167]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPSA id e6sm5759823lbs.3.2014.01.11.08.40.52 for (version=TLSv1.2 cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 bits=128/128); Sat, 11 Jan 2014 08:40:53 -0800 (PST) Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 20:40:47 +0400 From: mp39590@gmail.com To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Merge ping+ping6 and traceroue+traceroute6 to single utilities? Message-ID: <20140111164047.GA97150@edge.bac.lab> References: <1063008459.20140111160525@serebryakov.spb.ru> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1063008459.20140111160525@serebryakov.spb.ru> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.22 (2013-10-16) X-BeenThere: freebsd-net@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list List-Id: Networking and TCP/IP with FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 16:40:56 -0000 On 16:05 11-Jan 2014 Lev Serebryakov wrote: > Hello, Net. > > Is here any project to merge ping/ping6 into ping and > traceroute/traceroute6 into treaceroute? As IPv6 becomes more common these > days, it is very inconvenient to have these utilities separated. > Good evening, Lev. Quoting ping6(8) (and personally, I'm agree with those arguments): There have been many discussions on why we separate ping6 and ping(8). Some people argued that it would be more convenient to uniform the ping command for both IPv4 and IPv6. The followings are an answer to the request. >From a developer's point of view: since the underling raw sockets API is totally different between IPv4 and IPv6, we would end up having two types of code base. There would actually be less benefit to uniform the two commands into a single command from the developer's standpoint. >From an operator's point of view: unlike ordinary network applications like remote login tools, we are usually aware of address family when using network management tools. We do not just want to know the reachability to the host, but want to know the reachability to the host via a particular network protocol such as IPv6. Thus, even if we had a unified ping(8) command for both IPv4 and IPv6, we would usually type a -6 or -4 option (or something like those) to specify the particular address family. This essentially means that we have two different commands.