[ros-kernel]Re: Status pages: networking and more

[Robert D. <od...@pn...>]

Hi guys,

I am the current maintainer of the uC/IP project hosted on SF. This is a 
smallish TCP/IP stack including ARP, PPP and a bit more. It is based on 
the BSD sources and has very little requirements of the host OS due to it
being targetted for use in embedded controllers. It currently builds with 
VC6, VC7 and GCC-Win32 and various smaller microcontoller compilers. It is 
very ANSI-C with almost no external dependancies.

Unfortunately I have been very slowly learning the WDM (reading the Walter 
Oney book at the moment) and have never really looked at NDIS anything. I 
have also developed a unique driver model for this stack but it may not be 
to difficult to change into something more compatible with WDM, once I know 
just what that is!

One of my major interests in ReactOS has been the desire to work on the 
networking layer, but even after over three years of reading your list and 
keeping my codebase more or less up to date I have yet to find any way or 
enough time to contribute any code )^;

Another interest of mine is to develop some regression tests for the major
sub-systems in ReactOS. My vision of ReactOS in the future is to have a 
kernel which can be optionally built to be harder than concrete (ie totally 
anal parameter checking of everything everywhere etc), or conversely to run
faster than light (no checks whatsoever for running proven software only).

I have incrementally put together my own build of ntoskrnl removing the 
process management and replacing it with the task switcher from "UC/OS - 
The Real Time Kernel" so I can run my stack in protected mode on the PC 
and inherit many of the services from ReactOS. Other than FreeLdr, loadros, 
HAL and ntoskrnl I am yet to get familiar with the rest of the ReactOS 
structure and codebase.

Any suggestions or words of encouragement most welcome.

Keep up the great work guys.


Kind regards, Robert Dickenson.


At 10:19 PM 15/04/2002 +0200, you wrote:
>>For the latter, I think the best would be to find (and port) a mature
>>modular GPL'ed TCP implementation (modular as in 'not too tightly coubled
>>with the rest of the TCP/IP network stack').
>>
>> Do you think the one used by Linux would fit? It would be a great hit
>> for
>> ReactOS, as not only it has proved to be a good one, but it also cleanly
>> supports packet filtering and firewalling, the only thing that the current
>> Windows network stack is missing (incidentally, if this takes off, I could
>> make fun at those that said that it would be impossible to do on Windows
>> ;-), thus requiring personal firewalls to operate all sorts of hacks around
>> the network drivers
>>
>
>I think bsd network stack is better than the one found in Linux , actually
>Nt's tcp/ip is based on it , I don't know if it would be dificult to port to
>reactos , check http://www.cs.utah.edu/flux/oskit/index.html and I agree
>with you , It would be a great hit for Reactos to have a good network stack
>up and working!
>