Individual Network e.V. Convention

September 27-28th, 1997 at the 'Quellenhof' hotel in Aachen, Germany

Schedule

Workshops

UltraPenguins Moving at the Speed of Light.

New architectures are both easier, and harder, to port modern operating systems to. They are easier to port because modern machines offer more options, and thus less constraints, to the implementator of the support. They are harder to port because with all these new choices, a well tuned port requires more thought and work to obtain the absolute best performance. The port of Linux to UltraSparc based platforms will be used as a concrete example to illustrate these issues in depth.

GNU Current Projects

Richard Stallman will give a technical overview of some current GNU software projects, including the GNU Hurd (the GNU kernel) and Guile (the GNU extensibility library).

Ethico-political issues of free software

Richard Stallman will talk about the origin and philosophy of the GNU project, and how these relate to the free software community's present challenges.

IP Version 6, Why, what and how ?

Why ?

• Shortage of IP addressess both for machines and routing.
• Need for faster routing setups especially at the NAPs.
• Use what we have learned from IPv4 "Classic IP".
• Needed big switch - chance to fix all the "little things" too.

What ?

• New protocol layer based heavily on IP version 4.
• Retains the connectionless philosophies.
• Use the same upper transport layers to make development simple (TCP/UDP).
• Clean up link layer dependant issues such as ARP.

How ?

• Adding IP version 6 protocol layers to the network stacks of machines.
• Adding IP version 6 in parallel with IPv4 into the domain name service.
• Supporting dual IPv4 and IPv6 working, including tunneling arrangements.
• Defining IP version 6 for the "Socket" API to be cross platform.
• Porting of numerous applications to be protocol independant.

Conclusions

• Too much was changed - the porting has taken longer than need be.
• Not enough thought went into address writing syntax - clashes with URLs
• Backbone routing concepts were armwaved too much - only now being resolved.
• IPv6 is perhaps a bit too clever, but it will do the job intended.

Alan Cox

Age: 29

Education: Degree in Computer Science from The University Of Wales, Swansea.

His work in the networking layers included much reviewing of the Linux IPv6 support and the RFC drafts for the protocol. Alan took an active part on the IPv6 implementors list before handing the Linux IPv6 project over to Pedro Roque.

Alan's current projects are the Linux/Mac68K port, and drivers for the IBM PC110 palmtop.

Alan writes a monthly Linux column for Boardwatch Magazine.

Computer Security

Alan has a longstanding interest in computer security issues, but gave up co-operating with CERT when they failed to announce or do anything to further the fixing of a serious Solaris 2.5 security bug which is now 15 months old and still it seems unfixed.

Gardening

Alan recently discovered gardening. What this will result in is a mystery. At the moment the count is an unbuilt shed, a lot of broken concrete and two patches of lawn.