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Annotation of 40BSD/cmd/berknet/BUGLIST, revision 1.1

1.1     ! root        1: Network Status                 January 11, 1980
        !             2: 
        !             3: BUGS
        !             4: ----
        !             5: --     Various response messages are lost.  This includes "fetching"
        !             6:        files when the file being retrieved never arrives.  I suspect
        !             7:        this has something to do with unreliable delivery of error messages,
        !             8:        but this is not reliably reproducible.
        !             9: 
        !            10: --     The net command will create files in the queue directories
        !            11:        without the corresponding control files ("dfa..." without "cfa...").
        !            12:        Unknown cause.  They should be periodically removed.
        !            13:        (Perhaps caused by an error such as an invalid machine name.)
        !            14: 
        !            15: --     The network makes no provision for errors in transit on intermediate
        !            16:        machines, such as "No more processes" or "File System Overflow".
        !            17:        While these occur only rarely, when they do, no message or
        !            18:        notification is sent to anyone.
        !            19: 
        !            20: --     The network rendezvous protocol seems to occasionally get
        !            21:        in a state where a specific file is continually retransmitted
        !            22:        and never seems to get through.  This happens when both the
        !            23:        host system and the network queues are overloaded, and thus
        !            24:        is very unpleasant to debug.
        !            25: 
        !            26: --     The network daemons occasionally core dump.  They should not.
        !            27:        
        !            28: 
        !            29: SUGGESTIONS
        !            30: -----------
        !            31: 
        !            32: --     Performance Improvements:  
        !            33:        A number of links now running at 1200 Baud could have their speeds
        !            34:        changed to 9600 Baud without deteriorating the system the
        !            35:        network runs on.  
        !            36:        There are some high speed links (dmc-11's) which the network
        !            37:        could use for much better performance. 
        !            38:        Likewise, the Bussiplexor could be used as a faster link.
        !            39:        This would allow us to increase the present 100,000 character
        !            40:        file length limit.
        !            41:        All the links would be faster if UNIX kernel drivers were used to avoid
        !            42:        going through the terminal character queues and interrupting
        !            43:        the CPU for every character.
        !            44:        At the end of every quarter, network transmission speed decreases and
        !            45:        the volume of traffic increases.  The network becomes saturated
        !            46:        between two links and requests may arrive days later.
        !            47:        Increases in the link speed would reduce these seasonal delays
        !            48:        a great deal.
        !            49: 
        !            50: --     Maintenance Improvements:
        !            51:        The network has become large enough to make re-compilation
        !            52:        of the source on all machines to become practically impossible.
        !            53:        The net command has compiled within it a routing table for each
        !            54:        remote machine (defined in config.h).
        !            55:        Adding a new machine to the network requires recompiling the
        !            56:        net command on ALL machines.  The net command should read an
        !            57:        external text file to compute its data structures.
        !            58:        There is a program patchd, written by Bill Joy, which could
        !            59:        be used to patch the binary versions of the network
        !            60:        on like-systems, such as the Computer Center machines.
        !            61:        The network code should use the retrofit library for
        !            62:        non-Version 7 systems.
        !            63: 
        !            64: --     Network mail needs to be generalized in a number of ways.
        !            65:        People with accounts on many machines want their mail forwarded
        !            66:        to one specific machine. Also, there are at least two other networks
        !            67:        now connected to the Berkeley network (the Bell Research net and
        !            68:        the Arpanet), and mail destined for those networks should be
        !            69:        routed to the appropriate gateway.  Neither of these is particularly
        !            70:        difficult to implement, but system mail is an important facility
        !            71:        and the people in charge of the various machines on the network
        !            72:        disagree on how these features are to be added, especially concerning
        !            73:        issues of reliability and error reporting.
        !            74: 
        !            75: --     The possibility of a number of small UNIX personal machines wanting
        !            76:        intermittent access to the network looms ahead.  We should attempt
        !            77:        to organize the software to allow occasional use
        !            78:        by other UNIX machines, without tying down a port all the time.
        !            79: 
        !            80: --     The A machine has a typesetter that can be used from the 
        !            81:        Computer Center machines through the network.  It would be nice
        !            82:        if this facility were available from non-Computer Center machines
        !            83:        to the A machine.  Programs exist to provide this and have been used
        !            84:        extensively by Bill Joy and myself but the
        !            85:        Computer Center is reluctant to open up that facility for
        !            86:        security and reliability reasons.
        !            87:        We would like to arrange for Computer Center job numbers to
        !            88:        be stored in the password file on non-CC machines, to 
        !            89:        allow people without accounts on A to have access to the
        !            90:        typesetter.
        !            91: 
        !            92: --     Bob Fabry has suggested the "machine" be generalized to imply a 
        !            93:        machine/account pair, e.g. -m caf would imply "caf" on Cory,
        !            94:        -m Cory would imply "fabry" on Cory.
        !            95:        Environments could provide this information.   
        !            96:        It has also been suggested that the notion of a "default" machine
        !            97:        is too restrictive and that each type of command should have a
        !            98:        default machine, e.g. netlpr to A, net to B, netmail to C, etc.
        !            99: 
        !           100: --     Colin has developed some data compression algorithms.  On machines
        !           101:        which are normally CPU idle, his algorithms could be used to
        !           102:        compress data and speed up file transfer.
        !           103:        Each individual host could decide whether data should be compressed,
        !           104:        and each receiving machine would be able to handle both compressed
        !           105:        and uncompressed data.
        !           106: 
        !           107: --     Files being retrieved, or fetched, are created zero-length
        !           108:        as the request is sent to the remote machine.  An alternative 
        !           109:        would be to put the message "File being transferred." in the file to
        !           110:        make things clearer.
        !           111: 
        !           112: --     File modes should be preserved across the network.  Currently
        !           113:        they are set to 0600 most of the time.
        !           114: 
        !           115: --     It would be nice if the rcs facilities and commands on various
        !           116:        UNIX machines with rcs links were more accessible from machines
        !           117:        without an rcs link.
        !           118: 
        !           119: --     The network was not expected to become as large as it has.
        !           120:        Not much thought was given to large networks.
        !           121:        The netq command only lists queues on the local machine,
        !           122:        but many times the user is waiting for long queues on intermediate
        !           123:        machines.
        !           124:        Likewise, once the request is forwarded to the nearest machine,
        !           125:        the netrm command will not let the originator remove the queue file.
        !           126:        Finally, a network status command telling people what the network
        !           127:        was doing would be very helpful.
        !           128: 
        !           129: --     The file length restriction of 100,000 characters forces users to split
        !           130:        their files up into small pieces.  The network should have a 
        !           131:        way to do this split automatically.
        !           132: 
        !           133: --     The underlying protocol is wasteful and/or confusing in a 
        !           134:        number of ways:
        !           135:        * The request length should be in ASCII, not a long integer.
        !           136:        * Remove the extra 5 character string at the beginning of each
        !           137:          transmission.
        !           138:        * Compute a full checksum on the entire file in addition
        !           139:          to the checksum per packet now provided.
        !           140:        It is unlikely these will be changed since all the daemons
        !           141:        on the network machines would have to be changed at once.
        !           142: 
        !           143: --     The netcp command should allow the user to default one of
        !           144:        the filenames to a directory, ala the cp command.
        !           145: 
        !           146: --     File transfers, like remote mail, should be possible from
        !           147:        the Berkeley Network to the Arpanet and the Bell Research Net.
        !           148:        This is not difficult technically, but requires UNIX-like
        !           149:        stream interfaces to be written for the gateways.
        !           150: 
        !           151: --     Currently the network files being transferred are
        !           152:        copied into /usr/spool... it would be nice for
        !           153:        large files to simply use a pointer to them.
        !           154:        (To save time and space).
        !           155: 
        !           156: --     The scheduler the daemon uses is very simple.
        !           157:        It should have a way to age priorities and to "nice"
        !           158:        transfers, to be done after all normal ones are done.
        !           159:        Also, there are some network uses that are time-dependent.
        !           160:        It would be nice if certain queue files would disappear
        !           161:        at certain times, if for example, a remote machine were down,
        !           162:        given that they are no longer useful.

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