From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Stephen Hemminger Subject: Re: [patch] RFC: matching interface groups Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 11:29:19 -0700 Message-ID: <20060801112919.765eb831@localhost.localdomain> References: <1154452209.6395.77.camel@bzorp.balabit> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org, netfilter-devel@lists.netfilter.org Return-path: Received: from smtp.osdl.org ([65.172.181.4]:31666 "EHLO smtp.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751777AbWHAS3b (ORCPT ); Tue, 1 Aug 2006 14:29:31 -0400 To: Balazs Scheidler In-Reply-To: <1154452209.6395.77.camel@bzorp.balabit> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On Tue, 01 Aug 2006 19:10:09 +0200 Balazs Scheidler wrote: > Hi, > > I would like to easily match a set of dynamically created interfaces > from my packet filter rules. The attached patch forms the basis of my > implementation and I would like to know whether something like this is > mergeable to mainline. > > The use-case is as follows: > > * I have two different subsystems creating interfaces dynamically (for > example pptpd and serial pppd lines, each creating dynamic pppX > interfaces), > * I would like to assign a different set of iptables rules for these > clients, > * I would like to react to a new interface being added to a specific set > in a userspace application, > > The reasons I see this needs new kernel functionality: > > * iptables supports wildcard interface matching (for example "iptables > -i ppp+"), but as the names of the interfaces used by PPTPD and PPPD > cannot be distinguished this way, this is not enough, > * Reloading the iptables ruleset everytime a new interface comes up is > not really feasible, as it abrupts packet processing, and validating the > ruleset in the kernel can take significant amount of time, > * the kernel change is very simple, adapting userspace to this change is > also very simple, and in userspace various software packages can easily > interoperate with each-other once this is merged. > > The implementation: > > Each interface can belong to a single "group" at a time, an interface > comes up without being a member in any of the groups. > > Userspace can assign interfaces to groups after being created, this > would typically be performed in /etc/ppp/ip-up.d (and similar) scripts. > > In spirit "interface group" is somewhat similar to the "routing > protocol" field for routing entries, which contains information on which > routing daemon was responsible for adding the given route entry. > > Things to be done if you like this approach: > > * interface group match in iptables, > * support for naming interface groups in userspace, a'la routing > protocols, > * emitting a netlink notification when the group of an interface > changes, > * possibly converting the "ip link" command to use NETLINK messages, > instead of using ioctl() > > What do you think? I like the concept, but it probably needs more review. There is a bigger issue, which is how should the network device namespace exist? There are virtualization efforts, that want to virtualize it, and network device names have always lived in a parallel universe. I don't expect your patch to solve this...