Some thoughts on 240/4

Fri Oct 19 17:23:17 UTC 2007

On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 13:08:08 EDT, Leo Bicknell said:

> Less code, every patch produced to date /removes/ code.

> More regression testing, same number of programmes, ok.

> I also believe that's also about 29 more days than most vendors
> should need to do the job.

The fun is trying to prove you in fact nailed *every* reference.  Notice
the mention today of an Ubuntu box that had different results for adding
a route and binding an IP to an interface.  Obviously, it's more than a
one-line tweak, it's a one-line tweak in an unknown number of places.

Bind a 240/4 address to an interface?  Set a route? Set a *default* route?
H.323 NAT code that grovels around inside the packets?  The list goes on...

And of course, you *do* need to regression test - just in case somebody's
code does something insane like define an array [0..239] because they "know"
that 240..255 Can Never Happen because there's the one-line check - that you
just removed.

Quite frankly, I'd be leery of running *any* code from a vendor that actually
thinks that 30 days is probably 29 too many.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 226 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://mailman.nanog.org/pipermail/nanog/attachments/20071019/f6e97a34/attachment.sig>