BSD:sockets::SVID:(what?)

[Michael Bloom]

In article <5968 at umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> randy at umn-cs.UUCP (Randy Orrison) writes:
>For a project I'm working on...

>	What are the SVID and POSIX eqivalents of sockets in BSD?

That's a real good question.  For now, SV3 has no *close* equivalents.

TCP/IP has been promised for 5.4, but the big (hear this, AT&T?)
question is "via what mechanism?" Berkeley recently released a new
version of TCP, which SUN has incorporated into SUNOS 4.0 in the same
manner as before: Sockets are accessed _in place of_ inodes; not thru,
but in place of.  

You could loosely call the mechanism used "the file descriptor type
switch" (f_type and f_ops).

In contrast system V networking is done through (tli) library routines
which make multiple calls via the inode interface that in turn find
their way into the streams code, passing streams messages through
multiple modules possibly before even encountering the tcp protocol
code.

Portions of "the big question are": Will IP/UDP/TCP be rewritten as
streams modules? What about the UNIX domain? 

Alternately, will a stream cap driver be written that provides a tpi
interface?  If so, perhaps this could co-exist with the current socket
level code, to support the vast quantities of existing applications.

A question for SUN: Are there plans for 5.4 being able to run binaries
compiled to run under SUNOS 4.x? If so, will this result from services
provided by SUN's 5.4 being different from those provided by AT&T's
5.4?

Will streams itself be different in 5.4? Sun has documented that they
had to "extend" streams just to be able to provide a streams terminal
driver that could handle the bsd functionality not present in system V
tty drivers.

Will further "extensions" be necessary (or provided as the new
standard) for being able to properly and efficiently support BSD
networking? Judging from discussions I've had with people using
streams for (non-tcp) networking the answer is probably yes, but it
would be useful to hear the official word on this.

For future compatibility: Should people *now* writing new protocols
that will use IP put stream caps on the bsd protocols? Or should they
use the protocol-protocol interface?

>Also, do they interface?  Can i connect a socket on a BSD system to a snark
>on a POSIX system?

If you're talking about TCP snarks, you should be able to.