Re: CFT: new trunk(4)

Andrew Thompson wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 07:39:00AM +0200, Ian FREISLICH wrote:
> > Peter Jeremy wrote:
> > > On 2007-Apr-11 15:43:04 +0200, Ian FREISLICH <ianf_at_clue.co.za> wrote:
> > > >Andrew Thompson wrote:
> > > >> On Mon, Apr 02, 2007 at 11:17:29AM +0200, Ian FREISLICH wrote:
> > > >> > We're making extensive use of vlans to increase the number of
> > > >> > interfaces availabble to us using switches to break out gigE into
> > > >> > 100M interfaces.  The bandwidth problem we're having is to our
> > > >> > provider, a 100M connection, and we're looking at doing exactly
> > > >> > this.  However, it appears that this interface can't trunk vlan
> > > >> > interfaces.
> > > =2E..
> > > >No, I'm sure I want it the way I said.  I know it sounds wrong, but
> > > >I just don't have enough PCI-X slots to waste 2 on physical 100M
> > > >NICs for the uplink from the routers.
> > > 
> > > Trunking is a way of combining multiple physical interfaces to increase
> > > the bandwidth.  Trunking multiple VLANs on a single interface doesn't
> > > make sense to me.
> > 
> > 802.1q is VLAN tagging and trunking.  This interface is LACP - link
> > aggregation.  I really think that it makes no sense to be able to
> > aggregate some ethernet interfaces and not others.  I suppose some
> > pedant will tell me vlan interfaces are not ethernet.
> 
> I think the unfortunate name of trunk(4) that we inherited from OpenBSD
> is causing quite some confusion.  trunk(4) actually has nothing to do
> with vlan trunking which I think you are after.
> 
> I can see this topic coming up again so it could save some time to
> rename the driver now. It would mean that we lose the naming link to the
> same driver in OpenBSD but you cant win em all.
> 
> Some names that have been suggested are:
> 
> linkag(4)
> agr(4)
> bond(4)   <- same as linux
> 
> Any suggestions!

I, for one don't find the name confusing.  My correction above
applied to Peter Jeremy's "Trunking multiple VLANs on a single
interface doesn't make sense to me".

The switches I have call this trunking in the manual and product
sheet, but on the CLI the command to configure it is "channel".

If you leave the name the same, it'll be easy to reuse documentation.

Ian

--
Ian Freislich