[Vrs-development] Re: [DotGNU]pnetlib and the VRS, SEE and other server concepts

[Chris Smith]

On Wednesday 20 March 2002 11:06, Norbert Bollow wrote:

> It's pretty standard to use an XML-based protocol such as
> XML-RPC, SOAP, .... over TCP/IP.  AFAIK there's no clear
> de-facto standard yet on how exactly things are handled at
> the receiving end.

Yeah.. Well that was what I was alluding to!
It's the receiving end that bothers me :o)

> Joe will use something from Microsoft's C# class libs.  Those
> classes which he uses will also exist in the class libs that
> come with DotGNU, and need to be implemented to do the right
> things, whatever those right things turn out to be.

As long as both dotGNU and .net invoke a webservice (wherever it was 
developed) in the same way, then that's fine.  I'd like to get the wheels 
rolling on outlinging this mechanism....

> Here's a question for Lupus:  Since the plan seems to be for
> DotGNU to use Mono's higher-level C# class libs, how do we
> handle cases where "do the right things" means something
> different in the DotGNU context from what it means in the Mono
> context?

Quite.

> XML is the de-facto standard, although for bigger payloads I
> think it would make a lot of sense to use compressed XML.
> Depending on the context, the compressed XML should possibly
> also be encrypted, and it should be possible to add a digital
> signature to the encrypted compressed XML.

This is why I like SOAP with attachments.  The SOAP envelope just contains 
references to the XML payloads 'attached' to the message.  The SOAP bit is 
just an index to the rest of the message.
It makes scanning, routing and re-packaging very easy, with very low CPU 
consumption.  The attachments may ( I assume - don't quote me!) be compressed 
and encrypted as they're prefixed with the standard Content-Type: header, so 
whatever decides to extract a particular attachment will know what to do with 
it to get back to XML.
Nice.
I'm designing the XML gateway for a big Government branch at the moment, and 
am going to use SOAP with attachments to make Life Easy!

> I'd propose using the OpenPGP format and code from GnuPG for
> these things.

I've been using openSSL for these things as it comes with a complete set of 
encryption libraries - what does openPGP use?

> (Obviously this applies only in cases where there's another
> DotGNU system at the other end.  For all other situations we
> need to support whatever is supported at the other end).
>
> > If I can get these concepts/procedures sorted out I'll bung them in a FAQ
> > type thing
>
> Sounds great.
> Definately, this kind of thing will be helpful.

I'm thinking hard about getting a network presence sorted out - a framework 
onto which the VRS can be built - so I've got an interest in the network side 
of things!

Chris

-- 
Chris Smith
  Technical Architect - netFluid Technology Limited.
  "Internet Technologies, Distributed Systems and Tuxedo Consultancy"
  E: address@hidden  W: http://www.nfluid.co.uk