From: Howard C. Berkowitz (hcb@gettcomm.com)
Date: Wed Mar 31 2004 - 14:08:30 GMT-3
At 9:24 AM -0600 3/31/04, <dburnett@click1.net> wrote:
>Where may someone find more information (as much as may be publicly
>available) about how IOS creates and stores the data structure that it
>modifies from entered keywords (aka commands)?
In general, this is strictly proprietary and requires code access.
There is one Cisco Press book on IOS architecture, and also Alex
Zinin's book on Cisco routing protocol implementation.
From my experience with Nortel/Bay/Wellfleet, GateD and other routing
protocol implementations, the code is the primary documentation;
there are relatively few manuals that go with it.
When I try to figure out how Cisco has done something, my first
approach is to go to relevant IETF materials and consider what
external constraints would have to apply. In the process of working
in the IETF, one may build personal contacts with developers that
will respond to questions -- where you give a good reason for wanting
the information and also that your request is reasonable in time.
Getting into this level of detail also requires substantial formal
computer science background, at least the equivalent of senior
undergraduate/graduate level work in operating systems, computational
linguistics, data structures, etc.
Even inside a company like Cisco or Nortel, the developers don't
necessarily have a deep understanding of networking, although many
do. To actually get at the code and follow it, one needs a good sense
of how to write real-time code.
What kinds of questions do you have?
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Thu Apr 01 2004 - 08:15:50 GMT-3