SERVAL: a new free sofware project developed in Erlang

[Fco. Javier Morán Rúa]

El vie, 16-09-2005 a las 11:18 +0200, Ulf Wiger (AL/EAB) escribió:
> Do you comply fully with 802.1Q and 801D?
> Specifically, how do you stand in relation
> to GVRP?
> 

	With regard to your question, at the moment SERVAL is not able to
operate with physical switches using these protocols. However, in the
project we have already thought of this question before and we believe
it is a very interesting thing to do in the future.

        Besides, I would like to point out that although SERVAL it is
not able to talk to another switches by now, the user can do a lot of
VLANs management operations in the virtual switch. This is done in the
following way:

        To access to the virtual switch, the user has to run a client
program - SERVAL client - in his computer. On connecting to the switch
this application creates an virtual ethernet network interface and
assigns to it a MAC delivered by the server. 

        Then, using a shell utility, the user can request several
operations to the server:

        (*) It can create an VLAN.
        (*) It can join to an existing VLAN.
        (*) It can request the list of VLANs existing in the switch,
        (*) ...

	These requests are encoded in ASN.1 and sent to the server using an own
communications protocol. 

        This is the explanation of how SERVAL is able to work with VLANS
without using the link layer management protocols you mention, 802.1Q,
802.1D, GVRP ... Finally, I would like to say that although SERVAL does
not talk to hardware switches by now, there are a lot of interesting
applications we can do with SERVAL:

        (*) Company networks for employees being in external locations.
Employees which are at homes, working outside company offices, in a
hotel ... might connect to the SERVAL company switch and access to the
intranet of the firm.

        (*) A telecommunication company could offer to its clients a
SERVAL switch to connect. So, clients at home migth connect to its ISP
SERVAL switch and create VLANs to share files with another users, to
play to network games, etc ..


-- 
Fco. Javier Morán Rúa <jmoran@REDACTED>
IGALIA S.L.