[ethereal-dev] Generalizing the resolver stuff?

[Guy Harris <gharris@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Aug 08, 2000 at 11:21:34AM -0500, Laurent Deniel wrote:
>   - improve/fix add_host_name

Hmm.

Currently, "resolv.c" supports, for addresses:

	IPv4

	IPv6

	Ethernet

	the network part of IPX.

Should we add "add_ether_name()", as there's also a hash table for
Ethernet addresses - and, if we add further hash tables, add other
"add_XXX_name()" routines?

It appears you've made "add_host_name()" available to handle the IP(v4)
part of the

	When any dissector figures out a name for a party of any
	comminication, it should register that in a names database.

part of Richard Sharpe's suggestion:

	Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 14:29:35 +0900
	To: ethereal-dev@xxxxxxxx
	From: Richard Sharpe <sharpe@xxxxxxxxxx>
	Subject: [ethereal-dev] Address services and handling

	Hi,

	One feature that I liked in NetMon that is not in Ethereal is
	good handling of names for transmitting devices.

	What I have in mind is an addresses databases.

	When any dissector figures out a name for a party of any
	comminication, it should register that in a names database.

	Each party can have many names:

	   - Its MAC address, eg Ethernet, Frame, etc
	   - Its IP address
	   - Its DNS name
	   - Its NetBIOS name
	   - Its IPX name
	   - Etc

	This will require that each dissector be given one of the names
	that have already been discovered so it can look up the object
	in order to register any new names.

	The GUI should allow you to specify that any type of name be
	displayed, and it would be nice to be able to list the objects
	in the database and their attibutes.

and made the DNS dissector do that.

Another thing that both Netmon and snoop support is the ability to save
the address database as a text file - snoop saves only IP addresses in
"/etc/hosts" format, and NetMon saves all the addresses it knows about. 
Those files can also be read by the dissector, so if you take a capture
at a given site, you can save the addresses and send them along with the
capture, so that the recipient of the capture knows what addresses
correspond to what hosts in that capture.