From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Bill Nottingham Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/2] Allow full bridge configuration via sysfs Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2008 22:34:29 -0400 Message-ID: <20080710023429.GB24665@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> References: <20080707205342.GA19710@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <4872838B.1060603@trash.net> <20080707213420.GA20089@nostromo.devel.redhat.com> <20080707.145259.103902820.davem@davemloft.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: kaber@trash.net, bridge@lists.linux-foundation.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org To: David Miller Return-path: Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([66.187.233.31]:44543 "EHLO mx1.redhat.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750985AbYGJCfb (ORCPT ); Wed, 9 Jul 2008 22:35:31 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20080707.145259.103902820.davem@davemloft.net> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: David Miller (davem@davemloft.net) said: > > Why, if netlink is the standard (and it's been around for a long > > damn time), was sysfs configuration for bonding added in 2005? Why > > was bridge configuration added in 2005, and *extended* in 2006 and > > 2007? Why were the user-space tools such as brctl ported from ioctl > > to sysfs? > > Because often a lot of shit slips in when someone who understands > the ramifications is too busy or on vacation. Duly noted, will time all patch submissions to land during your vacations in the future. More seriously, if there's not a mechanism to prevent ABIs the kernel doesn't want like this being added, that's a problem. > We do want everything to be netlink based. > > Why? > > Because it means that you can run one monitoring tool to listen > for netlink events and report them to the user for diagnosis. > > It means that network configuration events can be sent over > the wire and used remotely at some point. > > The latter can never happen as long as we keep adding ad-hoc > config stuff. Sure, but it does make them more opaque to the normal user, leaving them wrapped in the same old ip/brctl/ifenslave/vconfig tools - for better or worse, people like the discoverability and obviousness of sysfs. Bill