[Groupkit-users] Groupkit research

[TongMei <ch...@zu...>]

Hi all,

Sorry I have been underground for the last month.  Had a lot on and have 
been totally occupied reading through two p2p books and a few other 
books related to open source, databases, distribution etc.

Answering some of the questions raised by Colin McCormack:

Both encryption and compression will eventually become important 
concepts to Groupkit, both for very different reasons and I hope that 
together we can implement these simple but powerful layers.  The point 
raised about the native implementation of sockets (as opposed to using 
comm) may also have sway here and I have looked at the source code for 
simple compression - from the tcl zlib implementation.  The packages Trf 
and Tls would provide a very strong solution for encryption but we would 
then be dependant on those packages.  None-the-less I am still in the 
process of looking at a great deal of other things and have yet to come 
to terms with the socket code in gk.


Metakit databases and persistence are the things I am currently looking 
into and would be glad of any help and ideas.  I had implemented a shody 
environment with Mk connectivity but I was not happy with the model and 
could already see terrible issues arrising with regards to uniqueness, 
freshness and collision.  So I stopped and decided to read the material 
mentioned above.  I now have a clearer idea of how this may be 
implemented but it really does all boil down to one thing:  What is our 
motivation for db connectivity in Gk?  Is it that we just want the 
ability to load data from previous sessions for persistence, or do we 
want full blown database support in this environment.  The answer to 
that question will have significant impact on how we proceed.


Network issues have always been a problem when it comes to p2p systems. 
 However, in my research I have come across the various solutions 
implemented by the likes of  Gnutella and there are some elegant ones 
and some ugly ones.  I would like addressing to be done by IP 
address/port number and not have to rely on host names.  Also a 
push/pull protocol implemented in the registrar could get around a great 
deal of firewall issues.
A repeater type registrar that sits on the firewall would only be a 
solution for a few as many IT depts. would simply refuse to run such a 
thing.  I strongly feel we need to look elsewhere for a solution to the 
massive problem surrounding firewalls.


All the best,

Chad Thatcher