Re: bonding and ifenslave version.

[Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@vyatta.com>]

On Thu, 04 Aug 2011 07:31:38 +0200
Nicolas de Pesloüan <nicolas.2p.debian@gmail.com> wrote:

> Le 03/08/2011 23:33, Stephen Hemminger a écrit :
> > On Wed, 03 Aug 2011 22:38:03 +0200
> > Nicolas de Pesloüan<nicolas.2p.debian@gmail.com>  wrote:
> <snip>
> >> At least, we can:
> >> - update the bonding documentation to clarify that ifenslave is deprecated (and move most ifenslave
> >> related stuffs at the end of the documentation);
> >> - possibly issue a warning when the API is used, suggesting to use sysfs instead.
> >>
> >> I can take care of the documentation update if appropriate.
> >>
> >> 	Nicolas.
> >
> > Or I could just put a shell script that does the same thing in iproute.
> 
> You mean, to replace ifenslave (from ifenslave.c) by a shell script by the same name that gives 
> users the same command-line interface but use sysfs instead of the ioctl API internally?
> 
> I had this in mind two years ago, in a private conversation while changing the ifenslave package on 
> Debian.
> 
> But chance exist that those who expect ifenslave to work would like to disable sysfs support if not 
> used. I assume that totally disabling sysfs at compile time would reduce the size of the kernel far 
> more that disabling the ioctl API. So, for those doing embedded things, this may makes sens to have 
> an ifenslave version that doesn't rely on sysfs.
> 
> Or do you mean, to replace ifenslave (.c) by a shell script that use netlink internally? Are all the 
> bonding options available through netlink? I remember many conversation about using netlink for 
> bonding setup, but don't remember seeing that in the actual code.

The sysfs interface is the least desirable.
The ifenslave script would just call 'ip link'