Some Routes Are More Default than Others
;login: Enters a New Phase of Its Evolution
For over 20 years, ;login: has been a print magazine with a digital version; in the two decades previous, it was USENIX’s newsletter, UNIX News. Since its inception 45 years ago, it has served as a medium through which the USENIX community learns about useful tools, research, and events from one another. Beginning in 2021, ;login: will no longer be the formally published print magazine as we’ve known it most recently, but rather reimagined as a digital publication with increased opportunities for interactivity among authors and readers.
Since USENIX became an open access publisher of papers in 2008, ;login: has remained our only content behind a membership paywall. In keeping with our commitment to open access, all ;login: content will be open to everyone when we make this change. However, only USENIX members at the sustainer level or higher, as well as student members, will have exclusive access to the interactivity options. Rik Farrow, the current editor of the magazine, will continue to provide leadership for the overall content offered in ;login:, which will be released via our website on a regular basis throughout the year.
As we plan to launch this new format, we are forming an editorial committee of volunteers from throughout the USENIX community to curate content, meaning that this will be a formally peer-reviewed publication. This new model will increase opportunities for the community to contribute to ;login: and engage with its content. In addition to written articles, we are open to other ideas of what you might want to experience.
Typical IP-networked hosts are configured with a single default route. For single-homed hosts the default route defines the first destination for packets addressed outside of the local subnet; but for multi-homed hosts the default route also implicitly defines a default interface to be used for all outbound traffic. Specific subnets may be accessed using non-default interfaces by defining static routes; but the single default route remains a “single point of failure” for general access to other and Internet subnets. The Linux kernel, together with the iproute2 suite, supports the definition of multiple default routes distinguished by a preference metric. This allows alternate networks to serve as failover for the preferred default route in cases where the link has failed or is otherwise unavailable.
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