Re: [GnomeMeeting-devel-list] ILS, big problem

[m-redlich t-online de (Matthias Redlich)]

Am Di, den 14.10.2003 schrieb paul um 00:04:
> On Mon, 2003-10-13 at 22:38, Damien Sandras wrote:
> > Perhaps Paul should have the final work on this
> 
> I'm afraid I don't understand why this is a problem. ILS lists people
> who wish to be in a directory. It isn't designed to guarantee that
> these people are reachable. Suppose, for example, that I wish to
> register with an ILS server but configure my firewall to only allow
> a known subset of people to contact me. Does that make me incorrectly
> configured? Suppose, the ILS server has a check at registration to
> see if the stated port is reachable, I could just allow connections
> from the ILS server but from nowhere else.
> 
> DNS lists hosts and mail servers etc, but nowhere is it guaranteed
> that you can connect to them. What is the difference here?

I can completely agree with Paul. I think such a test is not needed.

It is not your job - and you are not able to do so - to ensure that GM
users have a correct configuration. We've got a FAQ, a mailinglist and
competent people in the IRC channel. That's enough. If you tried to
avoid every problem users could encounter you'd end up writing a bunch
of tests and would never reach your goal.

Besides you should imagine a person who only wants to use GM with one
friend. In this case his firewall would only accept packets from his
friend. GM would work properly for him. When connecting to the ils
directory the server would run your test. All attempts would be blocked
by his firewall because it would only allow connections from his friend.
Your test would fail and he would be marked as "wrong network settings"
or something like that.

Cheers,
-- 
Matthias Redlich <m-redlich t-online de>