[39231] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Network Riddle
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Eric A. Hall)
Thu Jun 28 21:22:37 2001
Message-ID: <3B3BD80B.5AE945E8@ehsco.com>
Date: Thu, 28 Jun 2001 20:21:15 -0500
From: "Eric A. Hall" <ehall@ehsco.com>
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To: Chris Rapier <rapier@psc.edu>
Cc: Larry Sheldon <lsheldon@creighton.edu>, nanog@merit.edu
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Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
> > Define "server".
> >
> > Define "client".
>
> If you are looking at on the basis of multiple connections then the
> server is the one whose port number is stable from connection to
> connection (ignoring situations where both the client and server have
> stable ports as these are not even 0.5% of any one trace (based on the
> analysis of around 10,000 traces collected)).
For all practical purposes, the server is the process that is listening
for incoming connections, while the client is the process that is issuing
active opens to a server. There's no requirement for stable port numbers,
and the roles are often flip-flopped around from their traditional
interpretations (FTP-DATA, H.323, games, etc).
--
Eric A. Hall http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/
