+const char phase_unknown[] = "unknown";
+
+/**
+ * The connection might be dropped at some point; perhaps because the
+ * remote instance crashed. Just giving the offset on the stream is
+ * not very helpful. So instead we try to make io_phase_name point to
+ * something useful.
+ *
+ * For buffered/multiplexed IO these names will be somewhat
+ * approximate; perhaps for ease of support we would rather make the
+ * buffer always flush when a single application-level IO finishes.
+ *
+ * @todo Perhaps we want some simple stack functionality, but there's
+ * no need to overdo it.
+ **/
+const char *io_write_phase = phase_unknown;
+const char *io_read_phase = phase_unknown;
+