Ask HN: What's the hardest problem you've ever solved?
The article discusses complex technical challenges faced by the author in network configuration and programming. It highlights the use of ebtables for VPN functionality and the development of a cooperative multi-tasker for Turbo Pascal. The author reflects on the difficulties encountered and the eventual solutions implemented.
- ▪The author used ebtables and connection tracking to enhance VPN functionality in a dual homed network.
- ▪A significant challenge was writing a cooperative multi-tasker for Turbo Pascal programs under MS-DOS.
- ▪The author created a text piping engine to handle a unique requirement in an upload protocol.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
I used ebtables and packet labels/connection tracking to allow our in-house network VPN/Web servers to function seamlessly in our dual homed (but not BGP supported) internet connections, each with different public addresses and gateways. It's now stock functionality in VPN/Firewall appliances, we ended up with SonicWall, but at the time it nearly melted my brain.A second hardest was writing a cooperative multi-tasker for Turbo Pascal programs under MS-DOS.[1] It made a copy of the stack, and the first time it returned from spawn twice, I was really, really confused....
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Ycombinator.