Transport Layer Interface / STREAMS broadcast

[Mike Eisler]

ig at caliban.uucp (Iain Bason) writes:

>Does anyone know how to do broadcasts using AT&T's TLI?  Actually, what

There is no specific TLI utility routine for sending a broadcast. It is
up to the application writer to produce a broadcast address for the use
of t_sndudata(). To do this, the application must depend on some name
to address translation facility which is usually the responsibility of
the application writer. In addition, some transports make require some
TLI options negotiation to permit broadcasts.

Since TLI options and transport addressing are transport specific,
there is no way in SVR3 to do what you want, at least without intimate
knowledge of the transport. However, in SVR4, there is a nice name to
address mapping facility that is transport independent. It is called
netdir(3N), and consists of routines to manipulate addresses and names.
Broadcasting is specificially mentioned. The catch is that the
implementor of the transport provider STREAMS modules must also provide
name to address entry points in the form of a dynamically loadable
shared library.

>I want to do is write a STREAMS module that detects when a packet is
>being broadcast.  I can't find any reference to broadcasts in the
>documentation, although of course I know how it's done for IP networks.


All this stuff exists at the user level; there is no kernel facility
to support STREAMS modules that want to do name to addr mapping.

>Did they just forget to allow for broadcasts, or am I missing something
>obvious?

>			Iain Bason
>			..uunet!caliban!ig

The Transport Provider Interface, (TPI), which STREAMS transport modules
use, does not specificly allow for broadcasts. It does not specificly
disallow them either.

	-Mike Eisler
	mre at pyramid.com