Re: ncat - UNIX-domain sockets support

[Tomas Hozza <thozza () redhat com>]

----- Original Message -----
> Thanks for your efforts.  Does RedHat have a customer who needs this
> support or have you seen some other sign of demand?  Before we commit
> to supporting a new (to Ncat/Nsock) interface, I want to be sure
> folks
> will actually use it.  We shouldn't add it just because original nc
> supported it back in 1996.  The networking landscape was a lot
> different back then.

Hi Fyodor.

We are replacing the "old OpenBSD nc" in Fedora with nmap ncat. My
motivation for implementing UNIX-domain sockets is mainly the 
compatibility with the "old nc" because of some use with libvirt.

Here is a part of post on Fedora devel-list from Daniel P. Berrange:
> The NMap 'ncat' program doesn't support connecting to UNIX domain sockets.
> This functionality is *critical* for libvirt to connect to remote
> servers via our SSH tunnel facility. You've now broken the ability
> to connect to rawhide virt hosts :-(
>
>    $ virsh -c qemu+ssh://root () avocado XXXXX com/system
>    error: End of file while reading data: 2012-07-19 10:49:00.415+0000:
> 10202: info : libvirt version: 0.9.13, package: 1.fc17 (Unknown,
> 2012-07-02-12:05:10, t500wlan.home.berrange.com)
>    nc: invalid option -- 'U'
>    Ncat: Try `--help' or man(1) ncat for more information, usage options
> and help. QUITTING.: Input/output error
>    error: failed to connect to the hypervisor
>
> Libvirt needs to be able to run the following command
>
>    # nc -U /var/run/libvirt/libvirt-sock

I asked Daniel to write on nmap devel-list to describe their usage
scenarios more, because I personally don't work with libvirt and therefore
can't explain the need for UNIX sockets functionality.  

Regards,

Tomas
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