Re: [Syslog] Discuss - UDP Checksum

[Juergen Schoenwaelder <j.schoenwaelder at jacobs-university.de>]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2007 at 11:51:13AM -0700, Chris Lonvick wrote:

> Which brings us back to our original question.  Is the proposed language 
> below what the WG wants?

As an implementor, I have a problem with the statement

  syslog senders MUST use UDP checksums when sending messages over IPv4

since on several platforms, I simply can't ensure this when I write a
portable SYSLOG implementation. So I can either claim my code to be
RFC compliant while in a real deployment it might not behave
conforming to the RFC (depending on the kernel settings for example),
or I tell the truth that I can never guarantee compliant behaviour of
my implementation.

So if we need to have language at all, what about

  syslog senders MUST NOT disable UDP checksums

This is something I can implement much more easily since the default
seems to be enabled on those platforms I am familiar with. ;-) 

Or alternatively go back to SHOULD

  syslog senders SHOULD use UDP checksums when sending messages over IPv4

with the likely non-obvious interpretation that you should enable /
not disable checksums in your code but if the kernel bites you, you
are still fine.

My point is that if we put out requirements for implementations, lets
do this in a way that a coder can reasonably implement them.

/js

[No, I am not implementing SYSLOG right now - but I am familiar with
 other protocols running over UDP and hence this got my attention.]

-- 
Juergen Schoenwaelder           Jacobs University Bremen gGmbH
Phone: +49 421 200 3587         Campus Ring 1, 28759 Bremen, Germany
Fax:   +49 421 200 3103         <http://www.jacobs-university.de/>

_______________________________________________
Syslog mailing list
Syslog at lists.ietf.org
https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/syslog