Alpine4Linux

From: Neelkanth Natu (neelnatu_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 05/30/03

  • Next message: Marko Zec: "Re: Network stack cloning / virtualization patches" 
    Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 11:53:23 -0700 (PDT)
To: freebsd-net@freebsd.org

    Hi all,

    Alpine4Linux is a userlevel FreeBSD 4.8 networking stack running on top of a stock Linux kernel.
    It is an implementation of an idea that I came across in a paper[1] by David Ely, Stefan Savage
    and David Wetherall.

    Alpine4Linux consists of a userland server program that runs the FreeBSD kernel code as well as
    the unmodified networking stack. Client programs use the Alpine stack by setting the LD_PRELOAD
    environment variable to link to libraries, that intercept socket related system calls. These
    intercepted system calls are routed to the Alpine server over a TCP connection established on the
    loopback interface.

    Alpine4Linux goes great lengths to ensure that its behavior is identical to that of a FreeBSD
    kernel as far as networking is concerned. Thus, in addition to the unmodified FreeBSD stack.
    Alpine4Linux also has unmodified socket layer code, file descriptor code, tsleep and wakeup for
    e.g. It also has a rich client-side library that supports almost all socket functions as well as
    functions like fork() that are commonly used by server programs.

    I have tested stock Linux programs like telnet, nmap, ifconfig, vsftpd-1.1.3 etc. against
    the Alpine stack. I have only compiled it on a Redhat 8.x Linux box, so if someone manages to
    run it on another Linux distribution/kernel please let me know.

    You can find more information at: http://www.vzavenue.net/~neelnatu/alpine4linux

    Hopefully someone finds use for this.

    thanks
    Neel

    [1] Alpine: A user-level infrastructure for network protocol development
        David Ely, Stefan Savage, David Wetherall
        http://alpine.cs.washington.edu/

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  • Next message: Marko Zec: "Re: Network stack cloning / virtualization patches"