On Tuesday 09 April 2002 3:00 pm, Zygo Blaxell wrote:

> TCP *relies* on packet loss and predictable latency in order to optimize
> itself for available bandwidth, and TCP running on top of another TCP
> will defeat the algorithms TCP uses.  Your PPP over SSH link *will*
> get slower and slower until it crashes every time you try to use it to
> move any non-trivial amount of data.  Even IP-over-HTTP (i.e. one HTTP
> 1.1 request per packet, with keepalives and a very short timeout) is
> better than PPP-over-SSH.

The reason I discovered PPP-over-SSH was that I was working inside a network 
where the only ways out to the outside world were:
a) through the mail server by SMTP
b) via a proxy HTTP/FTP server
c) using Socksified SSH

...and I wanted to use other protocols which were blocked (eg ICMP & POP3).

Therefore IPsec and CIPE were not an option, but I've easily had the 
PPP-over-SSH link up for days at a time (it's a fat corporate pipe of unknown 
bandwidth at one end, and a 128kbps up/ 512kbps down cable modem link at the 
other), and I've readily transferred 600Mb ISO images of CDs across it for 
when I've needed to install some software...

If TCP-over-TCP is as bad as you say, maybe I should have set up IPsec and 
tunneled ESP through SSH, but that idea just seemed silly..... :-)


Antony

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