Re: Purpose of terminology I-D

[Steve Deering <deering@cisco.com>]

At 1:39 PM -0700 7/24/97, Scott Michel wrote:
> Feed		Source traffic that ingresses UDLN through a transit node.
> 		(AKA: Traffic, packets, ... :-)
>
> Feed-ingress	A node which transmits packets into a UDLN.
> 		(AKA: Feed, in satellite terminology.)
>
> Feed-egress	A node which receives packets from a UDLN.
> 		(AKA: Receiver, in satellite terminology.)

Hmm, your definitions seem to center around a mental model of an active
flow of packets, and then you are naming things with respect to that flow
of packets.

I'd be happier with more "static" terms that didn't depend on the actual
movement of packets.  In particular, I'd suggest the important concepts
to name are:

    non-transitive link 	- a communication channel (a "link",
				  from IP's point of view) on which not
				  all attached nodes (IP hosts and/or
				  routers) are capable of both trans-
				  mission and reception.  Examples are
				  some satellite transmission systems and
				  unidirectional cable TV distribution
				  systems.

    transmit-only interface	- the different types of attachments a
    receive-only interface	  node may have to a non-transitive link.
    bidirectional interface


Lately, in another context, I've been trying to come up with a new, less
verbose, and less overloaded term for "interface"; the term I've settled on
is "tap" (the point at which a node taps into a link).  So my candidate
terms for the last three concepts above would be:

    send-only tap
    rcv-only tap
    two-way tap

Steve