Re: tcpip-forward requests and bind addresses

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

Chris Lonvick <clonvick%cisco.com@localhost> writes:

> How about the following which separates the thoughts into a list.

The organization is clear, but it can be cut down a little.

>    The 'address to bind' and 'port number to bind' specify the IP address
>    or domain name and port to which the socket to be listened is bound.
>    Some strings used for the 'address to bind' have special-case
>    semantics.
> 
>        "" means that connections are to be accepted from anywhere on all
>        protocol families supported by the SSH implementation.

Perhaps strike "from anywhere", the mechanism is not (on the surface)
about restricting *from where* connections are accepted, only *to
which* addresses.

>        "0.0.0.0" means to listen on all IPv4 addresses.  Note: not
>        "interfaces"; the mapping between intefaces and addresses can be
>        multi-valued in either direction.

Delete "Note: ...". It's important that we choose the right word, but
the spec is not the right place to explain our choice in detail.

>        "::" means to listen on all IPv6 addresses.
> 
>        "localhost" means to listen on all protocol families supported by
>        the SSH implementation on loopback addresses only.  Note: loopback
>        addresses are defined in [RFC3330] for IPv4 and [RFC3513] for
>        IPv6.

I think "... loopback addresses only [RFC3330, RFC3513]." is
sufficient reference. No other references in the text are introduced
with a "Note:".

>        "127.0.0.1" and "::1", while not really special cases for a
>        normally configured system indicate listening on the loopback
>        interfaces for IPv4 and IPv6 respectively.

The "not really special" applies to "0.0.0.0" and "::" as well. Cut
it down to

         "127.0.0.1" and "::1" indicate listening on the loopback
         interfaces for IPv4 and IPv6 respectively.

I don't think we need to comment on which of the strings are "special"
and which are "normal", but if we want to do that, it should go into
the first paragraph.

Regards,
/Niels