Re: misc/39327

[Jukka Ruohonen <jruohonen%iki.fi@localhost>]

On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 03:10:05PM +0000, Martin S. Weber wrote:
>  Well, it's true that it shouldn't be "the DARPA internet" anylonger, but
>  what about the other part of the fix suggestion, i.e. document in 
>  /etc/procotols which domain (by socket(2) parlese) the protocol is for?

I am not sure whether I follow you with the other part.

1. I think it is not so easy nor reasonable for a single operating system to
change '/etc/protocols' because it comes from IANA, a.k.a. the Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority. Things like getprotobyname(3) may also use
'/etc/protocols' as a lookup. 

2. Generally the file is not meant as a reference for the domain-parameter
in socket(2), but rather as a reference for the number in the protocol-field
of IPv4 header (or next header -field in IPv6), as described also in the
file itsef. Even if such change would be made, there is no mapping between
the AF_-constants and the file (surely e.g. TCP can be used both with
AF_INET and AF_INET6).

3. Moreover, I think the socket(2) manual page does not rightly give any
impression that one should look to '/etc/protocols' for the AF_-constants;
quite contrary, the <sys/socket.h>-file appears several times.

- Jukka.