[Netconsole-devel] Getting this show on the road...

[H. P. A. <hp...@tr...>]

Okay, let's look at the basic design of this puppy.  I don't
so much mean protocol details and the be or not be of security
(which I'd rather wait with until we have a prototype) but more
the general architecture.

I'd like to see an architecture like this:


+-------------+
| Netcon user |
|    agent    |
+-------------+
       |
 TCP protocol
       |
+-------------+
|    Netcon   |
|    server   |
+-------------+
       |
Netcon protocol
       |
+-------------+
|    Netcon   |
|    client   |
+-------------+


The purpose of the netcon server is to provide session management and
(optionally) logging support.  The netcon user agent is what an admin
uses to plug into a session.  By isolating the UI from the session
management, we allow connecting and disconnecting to sessions.

Note that this is a useful capability in itself, and we may want to
consider (later, please!) the netcon server to talk to a serial port or
PTY session as well as to a netcon client.

Although the current assumption is that Netcon Protocol is a UDP
protocol, it will provide a logical bidirectional stream capability.

I really want to define a specific terminal emulation for this protocol. 
I definitely believe we do need more than a basic terminal, and having a
specific terminal emulation is key.  The only logical such terminal is
some ANSI/DEC VT subset.  Character set is yet another issue; I don't
think I have the guts to mandate UTF-8 over this stream.

Thoughts?

	-hpa

-- 
<hp...@tr...> at work, <hp...@zy...> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt