From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Patrick McHardy Subject: Re: [PATCH 6/6] netns: configurable number of initial network namespaces Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 19:21:54 +0100 Message-ID: <49075842.6000901@trash.net> References: <20081028174659.GF8471@thomson.net> <49075138.80808@trash.net> <49075488.8030002@thomson.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: netdev , David Miller , Benjamin Thery , jleu@mindspring.com, linux-vrf-general@lists.sourceforge.net To: Vivien Chappelier Return-path: Received: from stinky.trash.net ([213.144.137.162]:43091 "EHLO stinky.trash.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752583AbYJ1SV4 (ORCPT ); Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:21:56 -0400 In-Reply-To: <49075488.8030002@thomson.net> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Vivien Chappelier wrote: > Yes; the linux-vrf patches had a new netlink message to create/remove > the equivalent of a network namespace (ip vrf add 1). I've not ported > this feature yet, so this patch is meant to provide another way of > setting up networking stacks without the need for a new process for each > stack. The ability to dynamically create/remove networking stacks from > userspace would definitely be useful. I see, I didn't realize the process that created a namespace needs to be kept running. So yes, creating standalone network namespaces seems to make sense. > There are also some very minor advantages in creating the namespaces > statically at boot time, such as increasing the chances that the > allocation works (though network namespaces are quite small), and > improving boot time by avoiding a few calls to /sbin/ip on startup. > Since we are running on embedded devices, that is something that matter > to us, but it may not be enough to justify the need for this feature. > Anyway, I do not think it hurts to have the ability to create static > networking stacks at boot time. I don't have an opinion on this. Thanks for the explanation.