From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Stephen Hemminger Subject: Re: [RFD] Network configuration data in sysfs Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2011 22:17:01 +0200 Message-ID: <20111024221701.0775d227@s6510.linuxnetplumber.net> References: <20111023233558.GA23264@shutemov.name> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org, "David S. Miller" , Alexey Kuznetsov , James Morris , Hideaki YOSHIFUJI , Patrick McHardy , Greg Kroah-Hartman , Kay Sievers , Alexey Gladkov To: "Kirill A. Shutemov" Return-path: Received: from mail.vyatta.com ([76.74.103.46]:45670 "EHLO mail.vyatta.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754446Ab1JXURJ (ORCPT ); Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:17:09 -0400 In-Reply-To: <20111023233558.GA23264@shutemov.name> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 02:35:58 +0300 "Kirill A. Shutemov" wrote: > Hi, > > Currently there's no way to set or inspect network configuration (protocol > addresses, routes, etc.) through sysfs. Yes, we have netlink interface for > this, but sysfs has advantage: > > - change or inspect network configuration using standard unix utilities > (echo, cat, etc.). It's useful at least in restricted environment where > no special utilities available -- initrd or stripped down busybox. Last I checked busybox had a stripped down version of iproute arealdy. > - transparent udev support. It would be nice to get this information to > udev. > > Is there something fundamental preventing us to have sysfs interface for > network configuration? > Sysfs does not support the concept of transactions. Many network operations require setting multiple values at a time; which is why a message interface like netlink works much better.