Network2

Last updated: --Sj talk 04:38, 28 July 2009 (UTC) | paper version

Sugar's desired realtime collaboration experience can only be provided on top of a firm foundation -- a robust and efficient network stack designed to accommodate automated diagnosis and standardized workarounds. (Anything less just wastes teachers' and students' time and patience for spite.)

This essay summarizes an attempt to work out a simple way to realize this sort of network experience, with existing software and hardware, and demonstrates the sort of thinking which might help other parts of the system achieve the same standard of quality.

Quick links: the Paper

• Prior work: networking, collaboration, network principles
• Background: purpose, scenarios, architecture
• Designs: naming and internetworking, security ideas
• Analyses: cost model, diagnosis techniques, self-test algorithm
• Experiments: dnshash, openvpn

Teasers...

1. "I want to chop out 2-3 levels from the current collaboration stack's 6-level 'fast-path'."
2. "I want to name my machine michael.laptop.org and have that identifier work whether I am sitting under a tree with a mesh link to you or on a wide-spread internetwork."
3. "I want to be able to go to /etc/hosts and type in the address I want in case it can't be found otherwise, and have it Just Work"
4. "I want a design that never mandates single points of failure."
5. "I want to try out Journal2 as it is supposed to be used.

To help out...

1. Please help me to make my writing more accessible by:
   • marking "holes" with questions,
   • listing prerequisite concepts that I need to explain,
   • telling me when I fail to link my ideas to your experience,
   • pointing out a loose sentence or paragraph
2. Then see if you (or a friend) can fill in the missing detail or tighten up the loose remark.
3. Finally, add yourself to the credits if you succeeded!