This is just an opinion and not a very sensible one at that. The Linux TCP/IP stack is one of the most scrutinized network stacks in the world and more than likely free of bugs that coud lead to a server takeover.
Building my own network stack
41–50 of 103 posts
Re: Building my own network stack
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why can’t you JIT- generate the code and then run the verification?
Where did I say you can't do that? I answered you why I assumed the original comment was leaning towards JIT for everything.
Ok so if it is indeed possible to verify the code after JIT generating it, I still don’t understand why you would assume that in the hypothetical scenario we aren’t doing that verification?
You literally said it can’t be JIT, I’m just saying it seems like it can.
Re: Building my own network stack
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Proper verification would be deterministic rules the JIT-ed code would be checked against, so it would have to be non-JIT. Since the comment is talking about using more & more JIT for security reasons, I assumed it extended to verification too. I don't get why you'd generally switch to JIT for security reasons.
Who writes the formal verification spec and when?
I suspect there are already plenty of test suites out there for something as universal as a networking stack.
Re: Building my own network stack
#44Everyone should build their own ** is the general advise I would give just about anything. Otherwise it is hard to appreciate how much effort it goes into things that we take for granted. Everything looks simple from the outset until you try to build it yourself.
I recently saw this guy on HN who had written a web server for an Atmel AVR and also implemented a TCP/IP stack to boot. It obviously was far from feature complete, but it did work. He used SLIP to communicate with the "server."
Re: Building my own network stack
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
why are you assuming there would be no proper verification in this scenario?
Because the verification would also be done by something non deterministic and then that’s a paradox.
Feed the LLM output into a “deterministic” verifier, problem solved. That’s how LLMs verify their new mathematical proofs with lean.
Re: Building my own network stack
#46Huh, I thought the thesis was going to be "... because it's a good learning experience everyone should do to understand how networking works" but the reason offered comes down to security. However, I'm going to go with what I had thought originally and actually make this an assignment for students. Anyone have experience witht that, could this be done in a semester?
Re: Building my own network stack
#47I would seriously recommend against building your own network stack for production use. Or writing your own web server for production use. Or database (whatever SQL or NoSQL) also for production use.
These sort of things are more complicated than you could expect and have plentiful pitfalls. Whatever you can do in reasonable amount of time is probably not that good compared to existing alternatives.
If you have actually pressing reason to build one and are ready and have means to spend time and effort on it go ahead. But carefully consider the effort needed...
Re: Building my own network stack
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where did I say you can't do that? I answered you why I assumed the original comment was leaning towards JIT for everything.
Ok so if it is indeed possible to verify the code after JIT generating it, I still don’t understand why you would assume that in the hypothetical scenario we aren’t doing that verification? You literally said it can’t be JIT, I’m just saying it seems like it can.
Again, I answered that in the earlier reply:
> Since the comment is talking about using more & more JIT for security reasons, I assumed it extended to verification too.
I wouldn't consider feeding the JIT-ed code to a JIT-ed verifier code proper verification.
Even ignoring the verification bit, I don't see the security benefits of having agents write JIT code, hence the original question. Because there might be some edge cases I don't know about, but I can't see this applying generally.
Re: Building my own network stack
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Proper verification would be deterministic rules the JIT-ed code would be checked against, so it would have to be non-JIT. Since the comment is talking about using more & more JIT for security reasons, I assumed it extended to verification too. I don't get why you'd generally switch to JIT for security reasons.
Why can’t you JIT- generate the code and then run the verification?
Because after proper verification you very much aren't at JIT territory. Take the network stack. From my memories a proper commercial test suit from say Defensics is from a few thousand to tens of thousand cases. For each of Ethernet, IP, TCP and UDP. Any decent coverage however fast will take some time. Most likely lot more than you want with just in time...
Re: Building my own network stack
#50Everyone should build their own ** is the general advise I would give just about anything. Otherwise it is hard to appreciate how much effort it goes into things that we take for granted. Everything looks simple from the outset until you try to build it yourself.
I recently saw this guy on HN who had written a web server for an Atmel AVR and also implemented a TCP/IP stack to boot. It obviously was far from feature complete, but it did work. He used SLIP to communicate with the "server."
Respect