[ih] early networking: "the solution"

[John Day]

Yee, gads!!!  But OTOH, why am I not surprised.  ;-)

> On Apr 22, 2024, at 13:11, Craig Partridge via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Apr 22, 2024 at 10:21 AM Greg Skinner via Internet-history
> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
>>> 
>>> I have vague recollections the Internet checksum pointed out a bug in the SINCGARs applique prototype during development.  We were  getting packets that had IP checksum errors  yet had passed all the lower layer checks in the radio portion.  That wasn't supposed to happen.
> 
> A similar, if perhaps more horrifying situation.  Sun's Network File
> System (NFS) initially shipped with the UDP checksum turned off -- it
> made file system performance over a local Ethernet enough faster that
> it mattered competitively.    But this meant, of course, a trashed UDP
> packet* could trash your file system.  And, for years, trashed NFS
> file systems were a fact of life...
> 
> *And there were multiple trashing-capable components of the network
> path, ranging from the Ethernet switches, to the network interface
> cards, to the system bus.  Indeed, I know one computer vendor who had
> a super rare bus error in which bits got trashed -- they couldn't find
> it, but knew it existed because their NFS file system would fail every
> few months.  So they turned on the UDP checksum in NFS, the problem
> "went away", and they could ship their product.
> 
> Craig
> -- 
> *****
> Craig Partridge's email account for professional society activities
> and mailing lists.
> -- 
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history