Re: TEST PLEASE: if_tun patch

On Tue, Sep 30, 2003 at 03:17:05PM -0700, Brooks Davis wrote:

> > It looks strange to have `ifconfig create' vlan interface on tap,
> > while tap uses different semantics and can disappear after closing it?
> > With ef it is even worse, pseudo-devices are created while ef is
> > starting, so ef module must be loaded after creating every ethernet
> > device.
> 
> That's really evil. :-)
> 
> The proper fix for the vanishing tap is probably some standard way for
> parents to know who their children are so they can hunt then down and
> notify them that they are being orphaned when they die.  What the device
> would do it up to it since some devices like vlan and ef devices might
> as well die off, but an etherchannel device should just stop sending
> things to that interface.

I like to have all tun/tap interfaces to exist on my system, whether they
are opened or not. Interface list is constant, what makes me and my stats
more happy, same about firewall rules (rc.d/ppp calls ipfilter resync for
example, this would be a bit inconvenient to do the same for 20 /dev/tun).

I would like my tun/tap interface *not to* disappear entirely when device
is closed, uless I manually do something like ifconfig tun0 destroy. :)

> For ef, I'm thinking of expanding cloning so that we pass the requested
> name to each cloner for tasting and it decides if it can do that.  Then
> vlans would be created and configured by doing something like:
> 
> ifconfig fxp0.10 create
> 
> and you could come up with a similar syntax for ef by appending f# to
> any ethernet's name to get the appropriate frame interface.  A corrected
> form of the existing behavior could easily be implemented in userland by
> devd.

Sounds very sensible.


-- 
Paweł Małachowski