Maybe It's Snake Oil All the Way Down

[Bodo Moeller]

On Thu, Jun 05, 2003 at 10:11:45PM +1200, Peter Gutmann wrote:
> Bodo Moeller <moeller at cdc.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de> writes:

>> Using an explicit state machine helps to get code suitable for multiplexing
>> within a single thread various connections using non-blocking I/O.

> Is there some specific advantage here, or is it an academic exercise?
> [...]                   I have a vague idea from discussions with some
> OpenSSL-engine developers that they had some requirement for supporting async
> hardware in non-threaded environments, [...]                             the
> discussions tended to devolve into griping sessions about how hard async
> crypto hardware was to work with, not helped by comments like "That's because
> you're taking the path of most resistance, just use threads" :-).

I don't mind working with threads, but there's a lot of software out
there that uses single-threaded multiplexing, and adding SSL/TLS to
such software becomes much easier if the SSL/TLS library supports this
multiplexing paradigm.  (Not that it would be impossible otherwise --
another option, for Unix anway, is to fork off a processes that
handles a SSL/TLS connection and communicates with the main process
via a pipe.)


-- 
Bodo Möller <moeller at cdc.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de>
PGP http://www.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/TI/Mitarbeiter/moeller/0x36d2c658.html
* TU Darmstadt, Theoretische Informatik, Alexanderstr. 10, D-64283 Darmstadt
* Tel. +49-6151-16-6628, Fax +49-6151-16-6036

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