Re: [lwip-devel] [bug #33604] Callback registering functions don't check for a legal socket state

[Kieran Mansley]

On Sun, 2011-06-26 at 21:12 -0400, Cameron Gutman wrote:
> I agree that it isn't the ideal network stack for ReactOS. We have one
> based on the OSKit project but it required a lot of nasty hacks and it
> crashes frequently. I figured we'd take a performance hit but it was
> worth the stability and upgradability. We have the IP, UDP, and Raw IP
> layers implemented in our own code (which works fairly well) but TCP
> is a complicated beast and we've always relied on a 3rd party library
> to provide it. lwIP will also help because as lwIP's IPv6
> implementation matures, it can be integrated into ReactOS alongside
> our IPv4-only implementation. I think for our alpha status this will
> do but later we'll need to find another solution for the long term
> before we reach beta status.

lwIP can, in the right environment, perform very well indeed.  When I
first got involved with lwIP (over a decade ago now I think) it was to
use if for a (what was then a cutting edge) 1 Gbps user-level network.
While it isn't targeted for performance, it can be driven that way with
relatively little effort.

Simon's right however that the multi-threading issue will be the biggest
problem you face, both in terms of performance and getting correct
behaviour from lwIP.  It's not an especially difficult problem, but one
that needs some thought to get it right.

Kieran