On Fri, 06 Jan 2006 13:46:15 +0100 Patrick McHardy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Marcel Holtmann wrote: > > >>I just personally liked the idea of having a device node in /dev for > >>every existing hardware wlan card. Like we have device nodes for > >>other real hardware, too. It felt like a bit of a "unix way" to do > >>this to me. I don't say this is the way to go. > >>If a netlink socket is used (which is possible, for sure), we stay with > >>the old way of having no device node in /dev for networking devices. > >>That is ok. But that is really only an implementation detail (and for sure > >>a matter of taste). > > > > > > At the OLS last year, I think the consensus was to use netlink for all > > configuration task. However this was mainly driven by Harald Welte and > > he might be able to talk about the pros and cons of netlink versus a > > character device. > > I think the main advantages of netlink over a character device is its > flexible format, which is easily extendable, and multicast capability, > which can be used to broadcast events and configuration changes. Its > also good to have all the net stuff accessible in a uniform way. Also netlink doesn't have the naming issues that /dev node would. -- Stephen Hemminger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> OSDL http://developer.osdl.org/~shemminger - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
