Re: sftp draft clarification

[nisse%lysator.liu.se@localhost (Niels Möller)]

Alok Aggarwal <Alok.Aggarwal%Sun.COM@localhost> writes:

> How should the above para be interpreted? I'm a little confused with the part
> that says all servers should support packets of *at least* 34000 bytes and then
> says this should allow for reads and writes of *at most* 32768 bytes.

My interpretation is that

1. A server can choose to not support packets larger than 34000
   octets, and still be conforming (say, using a fixed size packet
   buffer). When such a server receives a packet larger than 34000
   octets, it is allowed to simply disconnect the client, or try to
   recover by sending some reasonable err message back.

   I.e. if a server implementation has a limit on packet size, that
   limit must be 34000 octets or larger.

2. A client can rely on being able to send read and write requests
   for up to 32768K of data; a conforming server has to support that.

> Also, why can't the server allow for reads and writes say ~64k bytes?

It can, but a client can't expect a random conforming servers to do that.

/Niels