At 12:05 PM 1/13/99 , Ben Laurie wrote:
>> [?] But how can I find all the IP addresses of my own host?
>> That's my real question. I know y'all aren't steeped in the Java API, but
>> how would you do this portably in C? Looking at
>
>I don't know. The only packages I've ever seen that do this are network
>analysis packages, and they are never portable. Normally, you do things
>the other way around (that is, either listen on all addresses, or listen
>to particular ones configured by the sysadmin). I guess the interesting
>question is "why do you want all the IP addresses of your own host"?
I want it to be as easy as
http://www.erights.org/doc/elang/concurrency/introducer.html to get started
with distributed secure programming in E. Publishers joke that every
equation in a book halves the book's sales. Likewise, if someone must
understand their tcp/ip configuration or talk to their sysadmin before they
can start playing with distributed computation in E, we're hosed.
If we can't make it this easy when there's a firewall in the middle, we can live with that. However, it must be this easy between two tcp/ip-ignorant PC users, each dialed into their ISP, whether or not either of these machines also has an ethernet card. Similarly, it must be this easy for two tcp/ip-ignorant PC users within a firewall-protected company, each plugged into their company's ethernet, whether or not either of these machines is also simultaneously dialed into an ISP. It would be good to enumerate other must-be-easy scenarios.
Note: these are marketing judgements, not technical judgements. Therefore you should assume I'm even more ignorant than usual. Second opinions solicited.
The only way I know to make the above two scenarios this easy is for the URI to record all the IP addresses at which the left-hand Vat can be reached, and for the right-hand Vat to try them all.