From owner-freebsd-questions Sun May 19 00:50:43 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id AAA04993 for questions-outgoing; Sun, 19 May 1996 00:50:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mail.think.com (Mail1.Think.COM [131.239.33.245]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id AAA04988 for ; Sun, 19 May 1996 00:50:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Early-Bird-1.Think.COM by mail.think.com; Sun, 19 May 96 03:50:31 -0400 Received: from compound.Think.COM by Early-Bird.Think.COM; Sun, 19 May 96 03:50:27 EDT Received: (from alk@localhost) by compound.Think.COM (8.7.5/8.7.3) id CAA08095; Sun, 19 May 1996 02:50:51 -0500 (CDT) Date: Sun, 19 May 1996 02:50:51 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <199605190750.CAA08095@compound.Think.COM> From: Tony Kimball To: bmah@cs.berkeley.edu (Bruce A. Mah) Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: ip masquerading Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk You're not alone...I'm trying to figure this out too. I've been looking through RFC 1122 (Host Requirements - Communications Layers) and RFC 1812 (Requirements for IP Version 4 Routers). I think these are probably the right places to find info related to this topic, but so far I haven't found it. I don't recall whether it was private mail, but Terry did mention router and MTU discovery, concretely. According to the masq archives at http:/www.indyramp.com/masq MTU discovery works in linux as of 5/16/96, so that prevalent estimations of what is feasibly accomplished in a masquerade implementation may be obsolete. I have not been able to exert the effort yet to determine whether there is an extant problem with router discovery in linux masquerade. IMO: The lack of masquerade is likely to prove the most significant disability of FBSD relative to Linux, vis a vis market requirements in the forseeable future. My most vulnerable assumption, in forming this opinion, is probably my estimate of the proportion of potential free unix users with multiple home machines *and* one of either multiple home users or a dedicated/demand Internet connection. I do not share your feeling that this is the wrong thing to do, partly because I have seen mostly FUD from the con camp. (This is not necessarily a criticism of any con postings, however -- there can be perfectly valid reasons to post FUD, and I believe some may pertain here.) I do heartily endorse the notion that intentionally introducing defects into the IP stack is a non-starter. The scorecard right now tells me that iff pertinent RFC 1256 router discovery requirements are not feasibly satisfiable in a masquerade implementation, it is not an acceptable approach.