[362] in linux-net channel archive
Re: tunnel devices (pre-1.3 net snapshot): intended use?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lutz Pressler)
Mon May 22 14:50:22 1995
Date: Mon, 22 May 1995 19:12:50 +0200 (MEZ)
From: Lutz Pressler <Lutz.Pressler@Unix.AMS.Medizin.Uni-Goettingen.DE>
To: linux-net@vger.rutgers.edu
In-Reply-To: <Pine.A32.3.91lp.950521215559.31798A-100000@amsu01.AMS.Medizin.Uni-Goettingen.DE>
On Sun, 21 May 1995, Lutz Pressler (that's me...) wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I just had a _short_ look at the pre-1.3 networking code. Maybe someone
> can give quick answers to the following questions:
>
> - are the "tunnel devices" (CONFIG_NET_IPIP, drivers/net/tunnel.c,
> net/ipv4/ipip.c) only intended to tunnel IP traffic? Or is it possible
> to tunnel any kind of (Ethernet encapsulated) packets?
It's IP over IP only.
What I really was thinking about is something like a remote Ethernet bridge
with an IP link as the connection. That would copy every (*) packet from
an Ethernet interface via the IP link to another host which "sees" this
"bridge device" as another Ethernet interface.
(*) "every" would be quite bad, of course. Filtering by protocol should be
possible, so should be by destination address (maybe dynamically).
The Ethernet interface has to be in multicast or promisc mode,
naturally.
This "generic bridging over IP" would allow transport of multiple protocol
traffic (IPX, AppleTalk, DECnet/LAT/LAST, ...) over IP-only (serial) links.
Is there any reason for this beeing infeasible? Maybe I just had a black
out.. Or is there anything like this done already? I haven't found a
suitable RFC..
Comments welcome.
>
> - background: A generic tunneling mechanism would be a way to send IPX
> (or AppleTalk, ..) packets over an IP-only link (especially SLIP, PPP
> [the current PPP implementation only handles IP, correct? Is this
> going to change (soon)?]).
> Is there any other method to do this? We have an application which uses
> IPX and would be nice for home (=PPP) usage.
Fons Botman <botman@rabo.nl> sent me an ALPHA version of an IPX over IP
tunneling daemon, which I will try out (as time permits).
Have a nice day,
Lutz
--
Lutz Pre"sler <URL:http://www.AMS.Medizin.Uni-Goettingen.DE/~lpressl1/>
Systemverwaltung -- Abt. Medizinische Statistik, Universit"at G"ottingen
Humboldtallee 32, D-37073 G"ottingen, Tel.: +49(0551) 39-4956 FAX: -4995
<Lutz.Pressler@AMS.Medizin.Uni-Goettingen.DE> [PGP-key:WWW&keys.] IRC:lp
