Homedir backup (was Re: "Stateless Linux" project)

David Hollis dhollis at davehollis.com
Wed Sep 15 18:39:46 UTC 2004


On Wed, 2004-09-15 at 13:04 -0500, Michael Favia wrote:

> >
> Yes that is why i said short of spoofing. In fact, most comercial 
> routers (Netgear, Cisco, Linksys) and OS's (Windows, linux, mac surely 
> but uncertian?) allow you to spoof your MAC addres these days. The 
> ability to do so is crucial to the redundancy of the internet. However, 
> Consider this: If the MAC address is spoofed *and* it happens to be 
> spoofed with the same 6 byte address as another MAC address you have 
> recorded in your preferences/syncing file there is most likely some sort 
> of relationship present. This is the reason for spoofing (Backup router, 
> etc). I'm not saying this is entirely certian by any means safe but that 
> with my limited understanding i am willing to accept the risks and i 
> believe a resonable person might agree. That after all is the real question.
> 

I think trying to determine location via Layer 2 means is going to be a
big mistake.  Networks tend to be very amorphous these days and node
location is very non-physical.  The workstation should not care at all
WHERE it is, it's more of a question of "can I get to where I need to?"
If contact can be made to the "home directory backup server", it is able
to sync.  Based on factors such as bandwidth and the like, it may be
more or less aggressive in it's backup, but will still be able to
attempt it.  Many companies have people that may never connect to the
local physical network, rather they work from home, client site,
starbucks, neighbors wireless hookup, etc.

MAC address should play no part in this.  Do you really want all of the
client systems to stop backing up because you had to change an interface
card in the router?  Do you want to have to keep the same MAC address on
that route forever so that you don't have to change every client in the
org that may connect on that subnet?

Didn't think so.


-- 
David Hollis <dhollis at davehollis.com>





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