Subject: Re: uint64

From: Darren Moffat <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 11:56:03 -0800 (PST)

>draft-ietf-secsh-architecture-07.txt defines the type uint64,
>
>    uint64
>      Represents a 64-bit unsigned integer.  Stored as eight bytes in
>      the order of decreasing significance (network byte order).
>
>It is currently used only from by the filexfer document, for file
>sizes, offsets and the like.

If it is only used by filexfer then I don't think it should be mentioned
in architecture at all - especially since filexfer is supposed to be
independant of the SSH protocol.

>I'd like to ask if we really need this type. The alternative is to use
>mpint (or mpuint, if that is added) for any numbers that can be
>expected to grow larger than an uint32.

Do you have any in mind for the core drafts that do need to grow larger
than uint32 or might need to within a few years ?

--
Darren J Moffat

---

From: [email-masked] (Niels M�ller)
Date: 30 Mar 2001 13:42:46 +0200

> independant of the SSH protocol.

To me, it makes sense to have all the encoding rules for all basic
types in one place.

> than uint32 or might need to within a few years ?

Offsets and times in filexfer are the ones I'm thinking of now. In the
other drafts, all big numbers are already specified as mpint.

For other numbers in the protocol, packet sizes are limited, and
32-bit channel numbers and window sizes seem reasonable to me.

/Niels