Re: Re: xPL Monitor: triple msgs

[Tom Van den Panhuyzen <tomvdp@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi John,

> However, if you leave your PC wide open to the Internet, you're likely
to
> run into bigger problems than people just turning your X10 modules on
and
> off - you're likely to get infected by a worm/virus long before anyone
finds
> your xPL port is open.
>
> If your PC is protected by a firewall (as all Internet-connected PCs
should
> be) and you haven't specifically opened port 3865 (which you
shouldn't!)
> then there should be no problem with people being able to control your
xPL
> devices.

Hehe, on the one hand you want ease-of-use, but on the other hand you
argue that users should have a firewall configured.
If you can configure a firewall you definitely can configure an xpl
device to listen to a specific port.

> > - drop the structure structXPLHub, use a class instead
>
> Any advantages to doing this?

If you are going to store these in a collection, you better define
them as classes.
Everything you want to know about their differences and more:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcn7/html/vaconstructuresandclasses.asp

> > - put  XPL_BASE_PORT and MAX_XPL_MSG_SIZE in the .config
>
> I disagree here :-)
>
> - The base port is our official IANA-allocated port - and I can't
think of a
> reason why it should ever be changed (though if you had a reason in
mind,
> please let me know in case I haven't thought of something).

For the same reason as port 80 being the default for http, but luckily
configurable on any decent webserver.
If it is not absolutely mandatory, then put it in a config file.
Maybe some users need to pass a firewall that blocks that port ?
Dunno.

> > - IsMsgLocal: check against the configured address instead
>
> Yep - need to change this.

But only if there is a configured address, otherwise you still will
need to loop over all local addresses.
The current mechanism may need improvement, see discussion here:
http://www.dotnet247.com/247reference/msgs/37/189739.aspx

For the xPL Lib review I did (see my other msg) there I needed a list
of local IP addresses too, so this part can be re-used.

-> > - send the message to the configured address not the loopback
address
>
> The message is *supposed* to go to the loopback address.
> Hub clients bind to a dynamic port on the loopback address, and the
hub
> sends messages to those ports on the loopback address.

Ok, I don't know enough about how a msg to a loopback address behaves
different than that to a "real" address.  There probably is a
good
reason.

Regards,
Tom
(if I sound obnoxious or impolite it is because of my poor English!  ;-)