235681 - Add SCTP support

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 486199

(Core :: Networking, enhancement)

Description

[Olivier Cahagne]

SCTP support seems to be working already as the following Web site has a Mozilla
tarball with SCTP support: http://www.sctp.org/

Not widely used, but interesting to have on a compile basis, it has RFCs
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2960.txt and Linux/BSD* kernel implementations being
worked on.

I came across this looking at latest 2.4 Linux kernel changes:
http://lwn.net/Articles/72924/

Comment 1

[Jo Hermans]

My company is using SCTP, but in Telecom related projects (Diameter, SIP,
SoftSwitches, etc ...). I like SCTP a lot (and I work with it), but I don't
think it's ready for general purpose use. The problem is support in various
OS'es and embedded devices (routers, firewalls, proxies, ...).

Note that <http://www.sctp.org/> is probably the only website in the world that
uses SCTP. It's probably unreachable for most people anyway, since SCTP might be
blocked by routers, firewalls or proxies ; just like the difficulties that you
can have while trying to set up an RTP-stream.

My recommendation is FUTURE. One day, when SCTP support can be found
semi-standard on very OS (I know, Linux is going that way), then we can think
about it ... But if sctp.org has implemented it already, then we might consider
to bring the changes into CVS, as a compile option.

Comment 2

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Note that <http://www.sctp.org/> is probably the only website in the world that
> uses SCTP. It's probably unreachable for most people anyway, since SCTP might be
> blocked by routers, firewalls or proxies 

Heh. explains why I can't get to that website :)

Comment 3

[Olivier Cahagne]

(In reply to comment #2)
> (In reply to comment #1)
> > Note that <http://www.sctp.org/> is probably the only website in the world that
> > uses SCTP. It's probably unreachable for most people anyway, since SCTP might be
> > blocked by routers, firewalls or proxies 
> 
> Heh. explains why I can't get to that website :)

Didn't know that, I can reach this site, maybe I can upload the modified mozilla
tarball they're hosting on some other TCP-reachable site ?

Comment 4

[Christian :Biesinger (don't email me, ping me on IRC)]

hm, actually, it now works for me.. don't know why it didn't before

Comment 5

[Jo Hermans]

A good introduction to SCTP can be found at <http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-sctp/?ca=dgr-lnxw01SCTP>. finally, SCTP is becoming mainstream (which makes my daytime-job a lot easier).

Useful links :
- comparison between TCP and SCTP for HTTP : <http://www.it.kth.se/courses/2G1305/Sample-papers/Henrik_Oesterdahl-sctp-20050525.pdf>
- a patch for Apache to use SCTP : <http://www.cis.udel.edu/~nataraja/research/apache/README>
- a modified version of mozilla (from 2002 !), which runs on *BSD with SCTP-support :
<http://www.sctp.org/mozilla.tar.gz>
- RFC 3436 (TLS over SCTP)

Comment 6

[Jason Duell]

Discussion of HTTP over SCTP now belongs to bug 486199.