Re: [RFA] Remote UDP support

[Daniel Jacobowitz <drow@mvista.com>]

On Wed, May 08, 2002 at 08:39:25PM -0400, Andrew Cagney wrote:
> >A patch for this feature was supported a year or so ago, but never went 
> >in. 
> 
> (lack of assignment the last time it was posted from memory).

Yep.

> >I had a need for this a couple of days ago, so I did it over from scratch;
> >it's much easier now than it was at the time.  The name of ser-tcp.c is a
> >bit wrong after this patch; I can either rename the file to ser-net.c or
> >just update some comments to match.  Got a preference?  Otherwise OK?
> 
> From memory, the last time this came up the conclusion was that:

I didn't see any of these conclusions when I looked.  Oh well.  None of
them were in the thread with the original patch or the discussion about
queuing it for 5.1.

> - It isn't at all reliable (rather than mostly reliable as across TCP or 
> serial).  The entire ``T'' stop packet can be lost and neither GDB, nor 
> the target, would notice.

Certainly.  I also see a comment about the G packet needing to fit in
one UDP packet, although I'm not 100% sure that's right.

> - it wasn't necessary - there are micro tcp implementations around that 
> implement sufficient TCP for the remote protocol to work

Still bigger than a polled UDP implementation, and much more
complicated.  Implementing a tiny UDP stack is simple!  Sure, it isn't
reliable at all; so use it on small networks and be careful :)

> Check the archives (search for mark salter?).

You vastly overestimate ht:/Dig if you think that's possible.  I really
want that program killed.

> One theory put forward was to have GDB print a banner(6) sized warning 
> (and get confirmation) before accepting the option.

I have to admit, I don't see the point.  A big warning in the
documentation, maybe, but such a confirmation query would drive me
crazy if I actually needed to use this regularly.

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz                           Carnegie Mellon University
MontaVista Software                         Debian GNU/Linux Developer