Re: Network hotplug semantics

[Brad Hards <bhards@bigpond.net.au>]

Oliver Neukum wrote:
> 
> On Donnerstag,  8. Februar 2001 08:03, Brad Hards wrote:
> > Situation: USB ethernet adapter (in my case, a KLSI one).
> >
> > Should the interface (e.g. ethX) be signalled when the device is plugged
> > in to the USB port, or when the electrical connection of the 10BaseT
> > wire is made? What counts as "plugged" in this case?
> 
> Quite a lot of ethernet controllers can't tell you whether a wire is
> connected. For other things like wireless networking the destinction is hard
> to make. Thus to keep things unified, as soon as the card is up.
I am not sure that the device doesn't know - my wireless card (PrismII
based)
certainly has a visual indication (led goes from blinking to on solid). 

There is also a potential problem on the unplug side:

I go to my favourite linux conference, in the 'net room, and am quietly
working away reading my email. In comes a great hulking linux kernel
coder
(who for the purpose of this hypothetical story we'll call "davem").
davem
sees that I am using Netscape to read my email and immediately knows
that
I am a luser. So he grabs the back of my shirt, and throws me and my
netscape
running laptop out the door. He then takes over my port on the switch
and
gets down to a few CVS commits.

In the mean time, I recover from my copious injuries and eventually find 
a script kiddie in the corner trying to break into some site or another, 
and using IE38.92.beta.4crashme to download pr0n. A quick backhander to
the script kiddie, a little bit of crying (over the bruising to my
hand),
and I get to plug my laptop back in to the switch. But in the mean time,
the DHCP server has given my IP to someone else (who for the purposes
of this story we'll call "nina"). So when I plug my laptop in, it gets
messy. And when davem realises that it is me screwing up the switch,
it'll get really messy.

Fundamentally, what is the difference between disconnecting the 
cable on one side of the adapter (the USB socket) or the other (the
10BaseT socket)?

Brad

N.B. Any resemblence to actual people is purely for amusement value.
Please don't sue me or beat me up.

N.B. Any violence implied or expressed in this email is hypothetical.
Unless you are the script kiddie running nmap on my server.
side of my adapter (plugged into USB port) and 
back in, it works, but

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