Hmmm.... The only thing I can think of here is does a port pair open for each instance of PSM? If so, then we have true duplication of work by all parts of PSM and that is something that should be looked at. If not, then is PSM talking to data handler which acts as a lock for the file, so that if one instance of PSM is manipulating data from the file, another instance can't manipulate the data file in the same way.My understanding is that this allows the PSM module to be used by other things than just Mozilla/Firebird. If PSM was coded into Mozilla/Firebird, then it would have to be coded into Mozilla Mail/Thunderbird separately. Also, every security instance would require a launching of the PSM code for that individual process. By having it launch as a process listening to a local port, then any instance of Firebird and Thunderbird can talk to that same process.
The only problem is that the devellopers reported some time ago, that each instance of Mozilla/Firebird has it's own PSM, which open the PSM data file separately, which is a problem when you run them concurently and there seemed to be no way to centralize the access to PSM inside only one process.
So there seems to be a contradiction here ...
Or maybe not. The first version of PSM, the one that was pluggable on Netscape 4.7 used such interapp communication. May be the opening of the network ports stays from this period, even if the functionnality is not used at all.
This is all speculation, someone like Nelson Bolyard would have to chime in with his two-cents worth to get a developer's view on this.
Thanks,
Chris
_______________________________________________ mozilla-crypto mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/mozilla-crypto
