Re: Reserving a libpcap DLT value

[Hannes Gredler <hannes () juniper net>]

On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at 12:55:36AM -0700, Guy Harris wrote:
| On Wed, Oct 09, 2002 at 08:50:03AM +0200, Hannes Gredler wrote:
| > ok now i get it; - IMHO you should not attempt to change the generic packetheader;
| > perhaps the easiest way [and to fix that one and for all for the future is to create a
| > vendor_private DLT type that follows a TLV orientation and hence
| > easy extensible without coordination efforts;
| > with "private" i do not necessarily mean "closed" but extensible; one of
| > the flaws of libpcap format is that it is not extensible i.e. depends
| > on wellknown types;
| 
| Which means what's really desired is not a vendor-private DLT_ type but
| a second generation of libpcap format - which is orthogonal to the
| Ethereal-specific stuff Kent wants.  The extensions could be useful even
| for *existing* DLT_ types.

IMHO changing protocols/formats once code is shipping is clearly a thing to avoid;
the DLT_private type would fiz both problems at the expense of a few extra bytes ...

/hannes
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