On Nov 7, 2008, at 9:44 AM, Dave Anderson wrote:
Network configuration has bugged me a bit ever since I started using
OpenBSD, not just the real security issue that Harald Dunkel points
out
but general ease of administration issues. For example, on a typical
single-NIC system one ought to be able to set up a standard
configuration and not care which make/model of NIC is installed.
The HAL feature of Linux has always been more frustrating and annoying
than helpful. When I have multiple interfaces in a Linux system, I
sometimes discover that devices aren't always enumerated in the same
order. Or vanish, or if I change out hardware it suddenly adds a new
interface vs just replacing the old hardware.
I have a single interface, why would I want there to be an eth1 when I
swap out one EtherExpress card for another?
I've had all of these problems with HAL in Linux.
Perhaps most of these issues could be dealt with by changing the
network
configuration procedure to have a hierarchy of interface-configuration
files rather than just hostname.<interface-name>. If hostname.<mac>
were used if the hardware MAC matches, then hostname.<interface-name>,
then (say) hostname.only if there's only one NIC found, the sysadmin
could assign interfaces to groups and use those group names
everywhere,
and so not need to use the actual interface names at all.
Why not standardize your hardware, instead?
This appears to be a fairly simple change. Does it sound reasonable
to
people with more knowledge of OpenBSD networking?
It's not a simple change.
