Re: Reserving a libpcap DLT value

[Guy Harris <gharris () sonic net>]

On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 08:02:23PM -0700, Kent Dahlgren wrote:
> The goal here is to de-couple the requirement for coordination between
> libpcap and Ethereal.

That is a goal I do not share.

> From what I have seen in the Ethereal comments
> it hasn't worked well,

That is not what I have seen.

> and the situation will only get worse.

I have no reason to believe that.

> The number
> of transports will grow dramatically the use of as switched interconnect
> technology increases.

So?  Unless one shows up every two weeks, which I suspect is extremely
unlikely, that's hardly a burden for the libpcap maintainers.

> The approach that I have suggested is simple.

So is the approach I suggested.  The *only* differences are that

        1) you get a new DLT_ for libpcap for each new transport as it
           shows up;

        2) the file format isn't tied to Ethereal, so tools other than
           Ethereal could read it.

If you *really* want a format tied to Ethereal, invent your own file
format (or just tweak the libpcap format with a different magic number -
and, as long as you're at it, get rid of unused fields in the file
header, etc.), and add support for that format to Ethereal.  No need to
involve libpcap at all.

> So I have two questions:
>
>          1) how do I get "DLT_NAMED" reserved in libpcap?

Hope that somebody else reserves it for you.  I disagree completely with
that approach, and won't be adding it.
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