[Vm-dev] Re: Stream Control Transmission Protocol

[Holger Freyther]

> On 05 Aug 2015, at 19:59, Ben Coman <btc at openinworld.com> wrote:

Hi,


> Going through old issues, I see one [1] regarding adding SCTP [2]
> support.  I've not heard of this protocol before. What are its
> benefits and use case for Pharo/Squeak?

SCTP was designed by the telecommunication community to migrate
from systems using MTPL2/MTPL3. I am not going into the benefits
of SCTP itself but this protocol is the base for “SIGTRAN” and also
for backend systems in LTE networks. It was considered for things like
WebRTC as well. 


> Regarding our resource constraints, modularisation goal and ongoing
> support, what is our strategy for this?

> 1. Integrate for Pharo 5?

no


> 2. Integrate into VM as plugin and have as external Configuration for
> image?  (btw, remind me if a Configuration can also add a VM plugin?)

no


> 3. Continue to leave it for later.

I am not sure. I think there should be two separate items:

* The SocketPlugin should know the SCTP network type and operations
like socket(2)/connect(2)/bind(2) should work. The beauty of the BSD
socket design is that the VM only needs to know how to deal with a
filedescriptor.

* There should be an additional plugin to bind the advanced sctp primitives.
This could work on OSX, FreeBSD and Linux.



> 4. Decline to use it.

Then I have to find different kind of work. :)


> Holger, What application are you using this for, and how are you
> managing to work with this at the moment?

I am using a piece of C application that handles SCTP/SIGTRAN and
provides a TCP/IP relay for Pharo.