On Nov 28, 2018, at 10:53 AM, Dave Barach (dbarach) <dbar...@cisco.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, November 28, 2018, at 1:40 PM, Guy Harris <ghar...@sonic.net> 
> wrote:
> 
>> And do 4 (VLIB_NODE_PROTO_HINT_TCP) and 5 (VLIB_NODE_PROTO_HINT_UDP) mean, 
>> respectively, "the payload is probably a TCP segment, beginning with a TCP 
>> header" and "the payload is probably a UDP segment, beginning with a UDP 
>> header"?  And, again, "probably" means that the hint should be inaccurate - 
>> potentially meaning it's something other than what's hinted?
> 
> s/should/could/, presumably.

Yes.

> When working with completed, tested vpp code, the hints will be accurate. The 
> UDP and TCP hints mean exactly what you think the would mean. Again, the 
> primary use case is for developers who need to see what's going on with new 
> code...

When working with completed, tested networking code, the Ethernet type field of 
an Ethernet packet will, modulo errors not detected by the CRC (or caputures 
getting packets that failed the CRC check) will mean exactly what you think 
they would mean.

Even when using a sniffer to see what's going on with new code, "wrong Ethernet 
type" is probably not the most likely error case.  Some sniffers (Wireshark, 
for example), do have a mechanism for overriding the normal interpretation of a 
given Ethernet type value ("Decode As..."), but that's rarely used for Ethernet 
types.

So, by analogy, is this a case where a sniffer should, by default, believe the 
hint, and, if it turns out to be necessary, offer a way to override that and 
force an interpretation of the payload other than what the hint suggests?
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