Re: "connections" (Was: protocol-22 comments)

["Jim Sermersheim" <jimse@novell.com>]

>From RFC 793:
  Connections:

    The reliability and flow control mechanisms described above
require
    that TCPs initialize and maintain certain status information for
    each data stream.  The combination of this information, including
    sockets, sequence numbers, and window sizes, is called a
connection.
    Each connection is uniquely specified by a pair of sockets
    identifying its two sides.

    When two processes wish to communicate, their TCP's must first
    establish a connection (initialize the status information on each
    side).  When their communication is complete, the connection is
    terminated or closed to free the resources for other uses.

    Since connections must be established between unreliable hosts and
    over the unreliable internet communication system, a handshake
    mechanism with clock-based sequence numbers is used to avoid
    erroneous initialization of connections.


>>> "Kurt D. Zeilenga" <Kurt@OpenLDAP.org> 4/18/04 11:31:55 AM >>>
At 09:58 AM 4/18/2004, Kurt D. Zeilenga wrote:
> stream
> 1. <communications> An {abstraction} referring to any flow of
> data from a source (or sender, producer) to a single sink (or
> receiver, consumer). A stream usually flows through a channel
> of some kind, as opposed to {packet}s which may be addressed
> and routed independently, possibly to multiple recipients.
> Streams usually require some mechanism for establishing a
> channel or a "{connection}" between the sender and receiver. 

Another comment: one reason not to use "stream" to refer to
the exchange of LDAP messages is that LDAP messages are
addressed independently (by message id) and routed
independently to the directory operation executed at an
higher level. That is, messages from multiple operations
(each a source) are multiplexed in the exchange.

I note that my primary interest is not which particular
terms are used where. I am primarily interested in ensuring
that our terms are well-defined and used in an unambiguous
manner. I wouldn't object to using "LDAP connection" and
"transport connection" as long as we never use the term
"connection" without qualification.

Kurt