[ale] Broadcasts on TCP/IP

[Mike A. Pennell]

On Wed, 1 Jul 1998, Bob's ALE Mail wrote:

> Normally broadcast packets are sent in the UDP/IP protocol and
> each responding host can send back information.
> 
> My question is:
> 
> Can broadcasts be used reasonable on TCP/IP given its connection orientation?
> 
> I searched the Linux kernel code and there seems to be support for it but
> I suspect that the sender (sending the broadcast) would only be able to
> talk with the first responding system?
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Thanks,
> Bob
> transam at cavu.com
> 

 The only problem I would imagine coming from this is severe network
congestion. If you sent broadcasts over tcp/ip then every single
computer on 
the network would have to respond to the computer that generated the
signal. This could become a nightmare on a large network. It doesn't make
sense to use a connection oriented protocol to send a broadcast.