Package: netdiag Version: 1.0-13 Severity: wishlist It is illuminating to inject "-Wall" into the makefile for statnet-3.8, particularly so for the architecture amd64.
The two files stat_ntohl.c and tally_ntohl.c are experimenting with hazardous calculations on pointers, integer type "int", and transforms ntohl()/htonl(). On any 32-bit architecture these calculations are harmless and even costumary. But for 64-bit architectures they are indeed questionable. Installing the package on an amd64 system, and running the server "statnetd", as well as the client "statnet" on a single machine, seems to indicate that the compiler rescues the convoluted code as it stands. However, running the service for a cluster of mixed endianness, and differing bit lengths, is a priori another matter. It is to me not at all certain whether the code is correct. The upstream changelog even admits that the manipulations using ntohl() were considered as an untested hack at the time. That statement was made at a time when 64-bit systems still were rare. Thus my remarks might deserve to be kept as a reminder for the time being, until someone with the proper system resources can verify the intended functionality, or until the maintainer grows tired of this issue; whatever happens first! Best regards, Mats Erik Andersson, DM -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org