On 25/08/15 21:24, Marcel Holtmann wrote: > 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.
Just out of curiosity, is the aim for IPv6 only net_device to be denying any kind of IPv4 configuration/tools, or is it for performance purposes? The IFF_L2_ONLY flag would probably need to mean something like (IFF_NO_IPV4 | IFF_NO_IPV6) such that you could decide which one of the two IP stacks you want to use, or none. -- Florian -- 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
