purpose of string match ?

[S. Shore]

On Tue, 2 Oct 2001, alex wrote:
> ok so it seems no-one thinks the string match is good for anything. What
> would interest me now is this :
> What did the person who wrote it have in mind. There must be some demand
> for it why else would someone have gone through the fuss of writing it ?

The string match is not good for dropping TCP packets. It may be fine for
dropping UDP packets, depending on the protocol, or sending a packet
elsewhere for further processing.

> So I guess my question is : how should I use the string match ?

You probably shouldn't use it at all. Not because it's a bad match, but
because there's so many catches in its correct usage, and most of the time
one simply doesn't need it.

Scottie Shore <sshore@escape.ca>
 "Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize
  a mistake when you make it again." -- F. P. Jones