[LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[alex]

Stephen,

Perhaps it is time to fix iproute2 interpretation of kbit/mbit/gbit.

Currently, they are interpreted as powers of 2 (i.e. 10mbit = 
10*1024*1024), which is absolutely incorrect when dealing with networking, 
as line speeds are always interpreted in decimal.

Example: 10Mbit ethernet is 10 000 000 bits/second. Someone who may be 
trying to rate-limit outbound traffic is bound for a surprise when tc's 
10mbit does not match physical line characteristic.

Other examples: 28k modem is 28000 bit/s, 56k is 56000, OC-3 SONET 
(155Mbit) is 155000000 bit/s, etc.  There isn't a technology that is 
quoted with kbits meaning 1024bit/s.

-alex

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004, Stephen Hemminger wrote:

> A new version of the iproute2 utilities is available to handle the new
> extensions for 2.6.7.
> 	* Based on the last known good version of iproute2 from Alexy
> 	* Included most of the vendor patches (except for the stupid ones).
> 	* Got rid of lots of the glibc workarounds,  I intend this to build
> 	  and run on 2.6 (and 2.4) only.
> 	* Fixed some parsing and formatting bugs.
> 	* Added gigabit as a rate.
> 	* Added HTB and delay scheduler
> 	* Added support for new tcp_info extensions to ss
> 
> The website is:
> 	http://developer.osdl.org/dev/iproute2
> and the download is in:
> 	http://developer.osdl.org/dev/iproute2/download
> 
> This version builds with 2.6.7 as the kernel include files, so either have
> the files in /usr/include/linux up to date or modify the top level Makefile
> to point to a kernel build.  Will workout a way to build on 2.4 next.
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-net" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> 

_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/

[LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[alex]

> But should we break existing scripts??  One possibility would be to make
> things case dependant (K = 1024 and k = 1000) or something like that.

That does makes sense for entering data, however, for display of results, 
they need to be in one format.

How about a global flags, -k/-K which would change all multipliers (for
input as well as output) to 1000 or 1024? That way, nothing existing will
be broken, and a warning should be placed in documentation that without -k
flag, results are misleading.

I'll leave the default selection for -k/-K up to you.

Alternatively, 

(tc -k <command>)

-alex

_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/

[LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Tue, 8 Jun 2004 18:32:09 -0400 (EDT)
alex@pilosoft.com wrote:

> Stephen,
> 
> Perhaps it is time to fix iproute2 interpretation of kbit/mbit/gbit.
> 
> Currently, they are interpreted as powers of 2 (i.e. 10mbit = 
> 10*1024*1024), which is absolutely incorrect when dealing with networking, 
> as line speeds are always interpreted in decimal.
> 
> Example: 10Mbit ethernet is 10 000 000 bits/second. Someone who may be 
> trying to rate-limit outbound traffic is bound for a surprise when tc's 
> 10mbit does not match physical line characteristic.
> 
> Other examples: 28k modem is 28000 bit/s, 56k is 56000, OC-3 SONET 
> (155Mbit) is 155000000 bit/s, etc.  There isn't a technology that is 
> quoted with kbits meaning 1024bit/s.

But should we break existing scripts??  One possibility would be to make
things case dependant (K = 1024 and k = 1000) or something like that.
_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/

Re: [LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[Andreas Klauer]

Am Wednesday 09 June 2004 01:31 schrieb Stephen Hemminger:

> But should we break existing scripts??

Interesting questions - would it break scripts, or fix them? How many 
people did actually check wether k stands for 1024 or 1000 when writing 
their scripts?

> One possibility would be to make things case dependant (K = 1024 and k > 1000) or something like that.

If 1024 is not used in real networks (I don't know) then you should just 
ditch it completely, IMO. Offering two possibilities is fine, but could 
also easily lead to even more confusion.

Andreas
_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/

Re: [LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[Michael Renzmann]

Hi.

Andreas Klauer wrote:
> Interesting questions - would it break scripts, or fix them? How many 
> people did actually check wether k stands for 1024 or 1000 when writing 
> their scripts?

I did.

Bye, Mike
_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/

Re: [LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[Federico Figueroa C.]

On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 02:31:29 +0200
Andreas Klauer <Andreas.Klauer@metamorpher.de> wrote:

> If 1024 is not used in real networks (I don't know) then you should
> just ditch it completely, IMO. Offering two possibilities is fine, but
> could also easily lead to even more confusion.

Is not only not used in networks, but also not used in hard drives and
other storage media, so when you get a 30GB hard drive you only get 30
000 000 Bytes.

The correct way according to SI (Internationa System of Units) and the
IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) are explained here [1]

So if you're using power of two factors (times 1024) they should be
called kibi (Ki), mebi (Mi), gibi (Gi), tebi (Ti), pebi (Pi), exbi (Ei),
and for power of ten they should be kilo (k), mega (M), giga (G), etc.
Notice the lowercase k for kilo, as uppercase K is for Kelvin units in
the SI.

If well documented and frontend developers are encouraged to use the
correct unit symbols I don't see any major problems in the mid term,
only some at first until people gets used to them.  The kind of users
that will usually use iproute should have the brain to understand that
Mbps is 1000 kbps wich is 1000 bits per second and also that MBps is
1000 kBps wich is 1000 bytes per second, and to understand that if they
want to use power of two they will have Mibps that is 1024 Kibps wich
are 1024 bits per second.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebi

Federico Figueroa C.

_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/

[LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[Jose Luis Domingo Lopez]

On Tuesday, 08 June 2004, at 18:42:46 -0400,
alex@pilosoft.com wrote:

> That does makes sense for entering data, however, for display of results, 
> they need to be in one format.
> 
That of units, their use and meaning is a common topic at some places,
including linux-kernel. There seems to be several international
standards with respect to units, both base-2 (2^n) an base-10 (10^n).

Maybe you have around units(7), a man page that gives a bit of
information on the subject. In my opinion, data should always be shown
correct, that is, 1048576 will be eiher 1024 kibi (1024 Ki), or 
1048.576 kilo  (1048.576 k), but not anything else.

The possible change in suffixes could break existing scripts in a
(hopefully) minor way, but changing rate specification in "tc" should be
thought for longer, the breakage here can be important.

Just my two euro cents ;-)

-- 
Jose Luis Domingo Lopez
Linux Registered User #189436     Debian Linux Sid (Linux 2.6.7-rc1)
_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/

RE: [LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[ThE LinuX_KiD]

somebody has tested this version ?

is stable ?
_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/

Re: [LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[Stef Coene]

On Wednesday 09 June 2004 01:31, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> But should we break existing scripts??  One possibility would be to make
> things case dependant (K = 1024 and k = 1000) or something like that.
I vote for yes.
What we can do, is use an other name so the difference is clear that it's not 
tc, but the new tc.  Mhh, why don't call this newtc?  Or tcnew?  Or tc2?
So people can use tc and not change the scripts, or use tcnew and change all 
scripts accordingly.

Stef

-- 
stef.coene@docum.org
 "Using Linux as bandwidth manager"
     http://www.docum.org/
_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/

Re: [LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[pf.vd.vlugt]

Hi,

Anyone bothered to check :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibi

this discussion just is too silly.
;-)

regards,
pieter frans

On 9 Jun 2004 at 21:21, Stef Coene wrote:

> On Wednesday 09 June 2004 01:31, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> > But should we break existing scripts??  One possibility would be to make
> > things case dependant (K = 1024 and k = 1000) or something like that.
> I vote for yes.
> What we can do, is use an other name so the difference is clear that it's not 
> tc, but the new tc.  Mhh, why don't call this newtc?  Or tcnew?  Or tc2?
> So people can use tc and not change the scripts, or use tcnew and change all 
> scripts accordingly.
> 
> Stef
> 
> -- 
> stef.coene@docum.org
>  "Using Linux as bandwidth manager"
>      http://www.docum.org/
> _______________________________________________
> LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
> http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/
> 


------------------------------000000---------------------------------
                               ,                  , 
                              /                    \ 
                             ((__-^^-, -^^-__)) 
                              `- _---'    `---_ -' 
                                `---|o`  'o|---' 
                                     \   `   / 
                                      ):   :( 
                                      :o_o: 
                                        "-" 
Support Free Software : http://www.gnu.org/fsf/fsf.html

and sign the petition : petition.eurolinux.org/index_html

_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/

Re: [LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 21:21:52 +0200
Stef Coene <stef.coene@docum.org> wrote:

> On Wednesday 09 June 2004 01:31, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> > But should we break existing scripts??  One possibility would be to make
> > things case dependant (K = 1024 and k = 1000) or something like that.
> I vote for yes.
> What we can do, is use an other name so the difference is clear that it's not 
> tc, but the new tc.  Mhh, why don't call this newtc?  Or tcnew?  Or tc2?
> So people can use tc and not change the scripts, or use tcnew and change all 
> scripts accordingly.

I don't want to fork or make the iproute2 utilities explicitly different from
earlier versions. Do we really want to repeat the mess of proc tools. 

But, in this case the change is actually small and contained, I haven't heard one
person who would be upset by switching.

So the next snapshot will use 1000's for rates and 1024 for sizes as per the
standard usage.
_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/

Re: [LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[Ed Wildgoose]

>I don't want to fork or make the iproute2 utilities explicitly different from
>earlier versions. Do we really want to repeat the mess of proc tools. 
>  
>

Agree.  Be bold.  Be unpopular.  Be different.  But whatever, avoid a 
mass of incompatible versions with dozens of options....
_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/

Re: [LARTC] Re: [ANNOUCE] iproute2 update

[Stef Coene]

On Wednesday 09 June 2004 22:37, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 21:21:52 +0200
>
> Stef Coene <stef.coene@docum.org> wrote:
> > On Wednesday 09 June 2004 01:31, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> > > But should we break existing scripts??  One possibility would be to
> > > make things case dependant (K = 1024 and k = 1000) or something like
> > > that.
> >
> > I vote for yes.
> > What we can do, is use an other name so the difference is clear that it's
> > not tc, but the new tc.  Mhh, why don't call this newtc?  Or tcnew?  Or
> > tc2? So people can use tc and not change the scripts, or use tcnew and
> > change all scripts accordingly.
>
> I don't want to fork or make the iproute2 utilities explicitly different
> from earlier versions. Do we really want to repeat the mess of proc tools.
>
> But, in this case the change is actually small and contained, I haven't
> heard one person who would be upset by switching.
>
> So the next snapshot will use 1000's for rates and 1024 for sizes as per
> the standard usage.
Isn't there a way to create 1 binary that can work like the old and the new 
version?  Depending on the name how the binary is executed, the ritgh version 
is choosen.  So you have tcnew and a link to it called tc.  If tc is 
executed, the old version is used, if tcnew is executed, the new version is 
used.

I know it sounds messy ...

Stef

-- 
stef.coene@docum.org
 "Using Linux as bandwidth manager"
     http://www.docum.org/
_______________________________________________
LARTC mailing list / LARTC@mailman.ds9a.nl
http://mailman.ds9a.nl/mailman/listinfo/lartc HOWTO: http://lartc.org/