Alternate to Ixia's ANVL test harness for tcp compliance.

Alternate to Ixia's ANVL test harness for tcp compliance.

[Piet Delaney]

Hey Gang:

Both at UNM and Bluelane we have used Ixia's ANVL test harness for 
verifying TCP protocol compliance with the RFC's. Recent additions
to Ixia's ANVL GUI provide a ethereal like GUI. It looks really slick;
even providing ladder diagrams for quickly viewing the big picture.

Unfortunately Ixia told me they don't have any plains to port the
new GUI to linux. Instead they are trying to migrate Linux developers,
us, to using Windows. Yeck!

With Ixia migrating away from Linux I was wondering if we should
consider using an alternate test bed for TCP protocol compliance.

Do any of you use tools other than ANVL for RFC compliance while
hacking to the tcp code?

In the unlikely event that there isn't an alternate; is there any
interest in a netdev group effort to motivate Ixia to porting their C 
sharp code to linux. I get the feeling that come of their developers
would like to port the code to linux.

-piet

-- 
Piet Delaney
BlueLane Teck
W: (408) 200-5256; piet@bluelane.com
H: (408) 243-8872; piet@piet.net

Re: Alternate to Ixia's ANVL test harness for tcp compliance.

[Jeff Garzik]

Piet Delaney wrote:
> Do any of you use tools other than ANVL for RFC compliance while
> hacking to the tcp code?
> 
> In the unlikely event that there isn't an alternate; is there any
> interest in a netdev group effort to motivate Ixia to porting their C 
> sharp code to linux. I get the feeling that come of their developers
> would like to port the code to linux.


Linux is the most RFC-compliant net stack in the world...  if they don't 
want to support Linux, it's their loss.  :)

	Jeff

Re: Alternate to Ixia's ANVL test harness for tcp compliance.

[jamal]

On Thu, 2006-20-07 at 12:49 -0700, Piet Delaney wrote:
> Hey Gang:
> 
> Both at UNM and Bluelane we have used Ixia's ANVL test harness for 
> verifying TCP protocol compliance with the RFC's. Recent additions
> to Ixia's ANVL GUI provide a ethereal like GUI. It looks really slick;
> even providing ladder diagrams for quickly viewing the big picture.
> 
> Unfortunately Ixia told me they don't have any plains to port the
> new GUI to linux. Instead they are trying to migrate Linux developers,
> us, to using Windows. Yeck!
> 
> With Ixia migrating away from Linux I was wondering if we should
> consider using an alternate test bed for TCP protocol compliance.
> 
> Do any of you use tools other than ANVL for RFC compliance while
> hacking to the tcp code?
> 

Talk to the USAGI folks. They have something similar to ANVL called TAHI
that they use to check compliance in IPV4, IPV6 and IPSEC. It should be
extendable with some effort to do TCP.

> In the unlikely event that there isn't an alternate; is there any
> interest in a netdev group effort to motivate Ixia to porting their C 
> sharp code to linux. I get the feeling that come of their developers
> would like to port the code to linux.

Create competition for them  - it is the easiest way to get them
motivated.


cheers,
jamal

Re: Alternate to Ixia's ANVL test harness for tcp compliance.

[Piet Delaney]

On Thu, 2006-07-20 at 16:04 -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Piet Delaney wrote:
> > Do any of you use tools other than ANVL for RFC compliance while
> > hacking to the tcp code?
> > 
> > In the unlikely event that there isn't an alternate; is there any
> > interest in a netdev group effort to motivate Ixia to porting their C 
> > sharp code to linux. I get the feeling that come of their developers
> > would like to port the code to linux.
> 
> 
> Linux is the most RFC-compliant net stack in the world...  if they don't 
> want to support Linux, it's their loss.  :)

They aren't exactly dropping support for Linux, they 'just' are not 
plaining to port the new ethereal like GUI to Lunux:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Piet,

Unfortunately there is no plan to redesign the GUI for Linux. We added
support for Windows a couple of releases back. The latest release 7.10
has been benefit by a new Windows GUI framework we have designed for all
windows based Ixia test application. The new GUI is based on C#, which
includes ethereal like packet decode, ladder diagram, Outlook like GUI
design. Currently there is big challenge to implement the same GUI for
Linux. The needed resource is also an issue. Ixia will continue to
maintain and support Linux platform. Please rest assure. Both windows
and linux platforms share the same under layer test engine.. So there is
no difference in test cases. Ixia also offers an upgrade path from Linux
to Windows. Please contact your local Ixia sales if you are interested.
Dean
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wonder if Microsoft is providing the "big challenge" to porting the
same GUI to linux. The world really doesn't need yet another Java
language. Gosling is a Genius, I studied his X11 News Server enough
to know first hand. Microsoft lost in court with their violating the
Java standards and C sharp seems to be just another stratagy to their
bizarre attempt to world domination (Like the SCO mess).

I suggest that Linux networking companies like UNM and us be Beta
customers for a port. So far it hasn't been entertained TMBK.
 
-piet

> 
> 	Jeff
> 
> 
-- 
Piet Delaney
BlueLane Teck
W: (408) 200-5256; piet@bluelane.com
H: (408) 243-8872; piet@piet.net

Re: Alternate to Ixia's ANVL test harness for tcp compliance.

[Andi Kleen]

On Thursday 20 July 2006 21:49, Piet Delaney wrote:

> Unfortunately Ixia told me they don't have any plains to port the
> new GUI to linux. Instead they are trying to migrate Linux developers,
> us, to using Windows. Yeck!


With some luck it will just work in wine.

-Andi

Re: Alternate to Ixia's ANVL test harness for tcp compliance.

[Tomasz Torcz]

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On Thu, Jul 20, 2006 at 10:28:34PM +0200, Andi Kleen wrote:
> On Thursday 20 July 2006 21:49, Piet Delaney wrote:
> 
> > Unfortunately Ixia told me they don't have any plains to port the
> > new GUI to linux. Instead they are trying to migrate Linux developers,
> > us, to using Windows. Yeck!
> 
> 
> With some luck it will just work in wine.

  As cited in other mail, it's written in C#. With some luck it will run
on mono.

-- 
Tomasz Torcz                        To co nierealne -- tutaj jest normalne.
zdzichu@irc.-nie.spam-.pl          Ziomale na życie mają tu patenty specjalne.


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Re: Alternate to Ixia's ANVL test harness for tcp compliance.

[David Miller]

From: Piet Delaney <piet@bluelane.com>
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 13:24:34 -0700

> I wonder if Microsoft is providing the "big challenge" to porting the
> same GUI to linux. The world really doesn't need yet another Java
> language. Gosling is a Genius, I studied his X11 News Server enough
> to know first hand. Microsoft lost in court with their violating the
> Java standards and C sharp seems to be just another stratagy to their
> bizarre attempt to world domination (Like the SCO mess).

Under Linux we have Mono as a C-sharp implementation.  For the kind of
GUI they most likely have, porting shouldn't be much of an issue at
all.

Re: Alternate to Ixia's ANVL test harness for tcp compliance.

[Jeff Garzik]

Piet Delaney wrote:
> I wonder if Microsoft is providing the "big challenge" to porting the
> same GUI to linux. The world really doesn't need yet another Java
> language. Gosling is a Genius, I studied his X11 News Server enough
> to know first hand. Microsoft lost in court with their violating the
> Java standards and C sharp seems to be just another stratagy to their
> bizarre attempt to world domination (Like the SCO mess).

Runtime dynamic bytecode languages -- Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, ... -- 
do seem to be all the rage.

As DaveM noted, though, C# is fully supported under Linux.

Or maybe they could go for Gtk+, which has successfully been used to 
maintain complex GUIs apps on both Windows and Linux.  GIMP is the most 
notable example, but use of Gtk+, GLib, and mingw has meant that you can 
build Linux-ish apps on Windows without nasty porting layers like Cygwin.

	Jeff

Re: Alternate to Ixia's ANVL test harness for tcp compliance.

[Piet Delaney]

On Thu, 2006-07-20 at 17:31 -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Piet Delaney wrote:
> > I wonder if Microsoft is providing the "big challenge" to porting the
> > same GUI to linux. The world really doesn't need yet another Java
> > language. Gosling is a Genius, I studied his X11 News Server enough
> > to know first hand. Microsoft lost in court with their violating the
> > Java standards and C sharp seems to be just another stratagy to their
> > bizarre attempt to world domination (Like the SCO mess).
> 
> Runtime dynamic bytecode languages -- Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, ... -- 
> do seem to be all the rage.
> 
> As DaveM noted, though, C# is fully supported under Linux.
> 
> Or maybe they could go for Gtk+, which has successfully been used to 
> maintain complex GUIs apps on both Windows and Linux.  GIMP is the most 
> notable example, but use of Gtk+, GLib, and mingw has meant that you can 
> build Linux-ish apps on Windows without nasty porting layers like Cygwin.

Perhaps, but my experience with GTK has been that it's difficult
to get installed right if you put it on /usr/local. I tried compiling
ethereal for our platform and it needed GTK and a series of other
libraries. I suspect it's likely a major effort to migrate from a
Microsoft C sharp environment to GTK.

-piet

> 
> 	Jeff
> 
> 
-- 
Piet Delaney
BlueLane Teck
W: (408) 200-5256; piet@bluelane.com
H: (408) 243-8872; piet@piet.net

Re: Alternate to Ixia's ANVL test harness for tcp compliance.

[Brent Cook]

On Thursday 20 July 2006 16:31, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Piet Delaney wrote:
> > I wonder if Microsoft is providing the "big challenge" to porting the
> > same GUI to linux. The world really doesn't need yet another Java
> > language. Gosling is a Genius, I studied his X11 News Server enough
> > to know first hand. Microsoft lost in court with their violating the
> > Java standards and C sharp seems to be just another stratagy to their
> > bizarre attempt to world domination (Like the SCO mess).
>
> Runtime dynamic bytecode languages -- Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, ... --
> do seem to be all the rage.
>
> As DaveM noted, though, C# is fully supported under Linux.
>
> Or maybe they could go for Gtk+, which has successfully been used to
> maintain complex GUIs apps on both Windows and Linux.  GIMP is the most
> notable example, but use of Gtk+, GLib, and mingw has meant that you can
> build Linux-ish apps on Windows without nasty porting layers like Cygwin.
>
> 	Jeff
>

Base C# support is pretty good in Mono, but you still have to be quite careful 
when creating a cross-platform application with it. Microsoft's version 
implements a number of libraries that still are not quite as well implemented 
in Mono (if at all). The toolkit libraries (Windows Forms, to the latest 
stuff with Vista) are a bit of a moving target. Plus, the .Net platform still 
lets developers interact with COM objects and other Windows-only code.

Just because the GUI is C# does not mean that it does not have a number of 
Windows-only dependencies, unless it was implemented with portability 
in-mind.

Re: Alternate to Ixia's ANVL test harness for tcp compliance.

[Jeff Garzik]

Brent Cook wrote:
> Just because the GUI is C# does not mean that it does not have a number of 
> Windows-only dependencies, unless it was implemented with portability 
> in-mind.

Well, sure...  The same can be said of any source code base, for any set 
of platforms, for any given language.

	Jeff