Hi Dave, >> This patch series implements a L2 only interface concept which >> basically denies any kind of IP address configuration on these >> interfaces, but still allows them to be used as configuration >> end-points to keep using ethtool and friends. >> >> A cleaner approach might be to finally come up with the concept of >> net_port which a net_device would be a superset of, but this still >> raises tons of questions as to whether we should be modifying >> userland tools to be able to configure/query these >> interfaces. During all the switch talks/discussions last year, it >> seemed to me like th L2-only interface is closest we have to a >> "network port". >> >> Comments, flames, flying tomatoes welcome! > > Interesting, indeed. > > Do you plan to extend this to defining a more minimal network device > sub-type as well? > > Then we can pass "net_device_common" or whatever around as a common > base type of actual net device "implementations". > > Or is you main goal just getting the L2-only semantic?
the other end of this could be also an IP only net_device where we do not have ethtool semantics. We do have a need for a IPv6 only net_device when utilizing ARPHRD_6LOWPAN for 802.15.4 and Bluetooth LE. Skipping in_dev initialization there might be an interesting step towards that. Not sure how much entangled in_dev and in6_dev still are. If it works for IFF_L2_ONLY, it might work also in the other direction. Regards Marcel -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
