[vbox-dev] Good news: Telnet server patch for VirtualBox serial port !

[Alexey Eromenko]

1. Yeah, I will look into "include/iprt/tcp.h". Need to figure out how it works.

2. "Create Pipe" can be renamed into "Create Socket" or "Server Mode".
"Create Socket" sounds better to my ear. If Oracle agrees, I will
rename it. Just didn't wanted to touch it for now.

3. IPv4-only code is all over the place:

a. NAT
b. Host-only network (it's DHCP server)
c. UDP Tunnel (my colleague's code)
d. Telnet Server (my code)
e. Live Migration (?) <-- needs check.
f. Bridge Mode to host's Wireless NIC
...

On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 12:53 PM, Klaus Espenlaub
<klaus.espenlaub at oracle.com> wrote:
> Alexey,
>
> On 31.03.2015 20:35, Alexey Eromenko wrote:
>> Several days of work :)
>> VirtualBox finally got a serial-telnet-server patch !
>> Ugly tricks such as "socat" bridge and "VMware Serial Line Gateway"
>> out; Patch in !
>
> really a brilliant contribution - with one catch: your code is using the
> socket API directly (always a risk of subtle bugs on Windows, as winsock
> is a poor copy of the socket API, with surprises all over the place),
> and clearly can only handle IPv4. Would you be willing to spend a few
> extra minutes to convert it to use the TCP server/client functionality
> available in include/iprt/tcp.h (you choose if you want the callbacks or
> the other variant) plus include/iprt/socket.h (for the actual
> reading/writing)?
>
> All other issues I found while reviewing the code are idle nagging of a
> perfectionist - the most prominent one is shown by your screenshot
> actually: the GUI has a "Create Pipe" checkbox in this case (controlling
> server mode), which is misleadingly named in this context. Far from
> urgent. Your contribution's usefulness outweighs such really tiny
> quirks. It actually might be a task for us, using different wording for
> this option in all cases, in the light of having a new member in the
> list of serial port backends.
>
>> This is especially useful for GNS3 Network Simulator, where we do
>> access remote VM's serial port.
>>
>> I ask you to include it in the upcoming VirtualBox 4.4, and call it a
>> "major new feature" in changelog :)
>
> I definitely want to get this into the coming release. Actually I
> wouldn't postpone it even if you said that you don't have time right now
> to do the socket API cleanup I mentioned above - then it would be IPv4
> only until someone does.
>
> Just a bit sad as with the coming release we want to squash as many
> places as possible which are IPv4 only - it is becoming an annoying
> limitation for some users.
>
>> Download patch + screenshot here:
>> https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=66893&p=317052#p317052
>
> All in all a really good quality contribution.
>
> Thanks so far, and we'll see when in the next week or so someone finds
> time to include it (let us know if you want to do the cleanup first,
> would avoid a tiny bit of additional work for is)!
>
> Klaus
>
>>
>> Enjoy !
>
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-- 
-Alexey Eromenko "Technologov"