[Bro-Dev] #540: Method of initializing communication subsystem

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#540: Method of initializing communication subsystem
---------------------+--------------------
 Reporter:  seth     |      Owner:
     Type:  Problem  |     Status:  new
 Priority:  Normal   |  Milestone:  Bro1.6
Component:  Bro      |    Version:
 Keywords:  beta     |
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 The way the communications system is enabled internally prevents us from
 making the script-level communications framework part of the base script
 load.

 From Expr.cc:
 {{{
         // ### This is a hack. We check whether one of the remote
 serializer's
         // built-in functions is referenced. If so, we activate the
 serializer.
         // A better solution would be to either (1) a generic mechanism in
         // which have (internal) attributes associated with identifiers
 and
         // as we see references to the identifiers, we do bookkeeping
         // associated with their attribute (so in this case the attribute
         // would be "flag that inter-Bro communication is being used"),
         // or (2) after the parse is done, we'd query whether these
         // particular identifiers were seen, rather than doing the test
         // here for every NameExpr we create.
 }}}

 As soon as the parser sees one of the communication BiFs in a script it
 initializes the internal remote serializer (which still leads to
 performance issues on lightly loaded links).  Would it easy/possible to
 delay initializing the remote serializer until a more deliberate action
 has been taken at the scripting layer?

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://tracker.bro-ids.org/bro/ticket/540>
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