Re: [PATCH][RFC] etherip: Ethernet-in-IPv4 tunneling

[Ben Greear <greearb@candelatech.com>]

Lennert Buytenhek wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 02:42:49PM -0800, Ben Greear wrote:
> 
> 
>>Why do you add a single device when loading the module?  Is this just
>>so you have something to hook the ioctl to?
>>
>>My personal preference would be something where you do not automatically
>>create an etherip0, but would have an etherip-config tool or similar to
>>create/destroy interfaces.
> 
> 
> I modelled this after the way ipip/gre/sit do things -- they create
> tunl0/gre0/sit0, and have 'ip tunnel' send its ioctls to those devices.
> 
> I wouldn't mind changing this to another mechanism, but 1) we'd have to
> agree on a mechanism, and 2) we'd have to change the other tunnel types
> over to this mechanism as well.

Ok, it's not a big deal to me.

>>Also, could you add an ioctl that allowed one to query whether or not
>>a particular device is an etherip device?  I had always wished I had added
>>this earlier to the VLAN code :)
> 
> 
> Hmmm.  Bridge devices don't have this either, do they?  Can you name
> an advantage of having this?

I got the request several times with regard to VLANs.  Lots of people
(and applications) will want to know the interface type for various
reasons.  If you don't give them a nice programatic thing like an
IOCTL to call, they will undoubtedly start making assumptions based
off of the device name...

Ben

-- 
Ben Greear <greearb@candelatech.com>
Candela Technologies Inc  http://www.candelatech.com