[comp.unix.programmer] TCP wheel re-invention

rjd@cs.brown.edu (Rob Demillo) (10/19/90)

A few days ago I requested that people refer me to some public
domain libraries that would handle all the dirty work
of UNIX TCP I/O via sockets - I knew a million other people
must have done it, and I wasn't in the modd to re-invent the wheel.

Well, I was overwhelmed with responses, but most of them were
of the 'Pleaase let me know what you find out' variety. So...

Don Lebes of NIST (hello Don!) has written a conviently
useful (and tiny) library which does this very thing. It comes
in .shar format, complete with documentation...! Ta-da!

It can be retrieved from
	durer.cme.nist.gov
and is called
	pub/sized_io.shar.Z

Just retrieve it, uncompress it, change its mode to
executable and let it run.

Thanks one and all for the help!!!


 - Rob DeMillo			| Internet: 	 rjd@brown.cs.edu     
   Brown University 		| Also Internet: demillo@juliet.ll.mit.edu
   Planetary Science Group	| Reality: 401-273-0804 (home)
"I say you *are* the Messiah, Lord! And I ought to know, I've followed a few!"

brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) (10/19/90)

In article <53731@brunix.UUCP> rjd@cs.brown.edu (Rob Demillo) writes:
> A few days ago I requested that people refer me to some public
> domain libraries that would handle all the dirty work
> of UNIX TCP I/O via sockets - I knew a million other people
> must have done it, and I wasn't in the modd to re-invent the wheel.
  [ Don Libes' pub/sized_io.shar.Z on durer.cme.nist.gov ]

An alternative is my auth package, comp.sources.unix volume 22. It
provides two big advantages over sized_io:

  1. It's modular. Programs written for auth can be ported to any other
     communications system that provides auth's interface, without even
     being recompiled. You can use the communications from the shell, or
     run a single auth-based program over several different networks at
     once.

  2. It tells you the remote username, a la RFC 931. Of course, you can
     use the programs without this added security, but if you want you
     can easily achieve a level of authentication only exceeded among
     current protocols by Kerberos. (And Kerberos isn't exportable.)

Lots of sample applications, including scripts to wrap authenticated
username logging around sendmail, are provided in the authutil package,
also in comp.sources.unix volume 22. auth and authutil should work on
any BSD-based system.

---Dan