From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: =?UTF-8?B?Tmljb2xhcyBkZSBQZXNsb8O8YW4=?= Subject: Re: bonding and ifenslave version. Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2011 22:38:03 +0200 Message-ID: <4E39B1AB.7050502@gmail.com> References: <1312315615-5739-1-git-send-email-nicolas.2p.debian@free.fr> <4E38EE23.8030703@gmail.com> <4E39A3A7.1080905@gmail.com> <1718.1312402077@death> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Cc: Andy Gospodarek , netdev@vger.kernel.org To: Jay Vosburgh Return-path: Received: from mail-wy0-f174.google.com ([74.125.82.174]:49239 "EHLO mail-wy0-f174.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753626Ab1HCUiG (ORCPT ); Wed, 3 Aug 2011 16:38:06 -0400 Received: by wyf22 with SMTP id 22so100399wyf.19 for ; Wed, 03 Aug 2011 13:38:05 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <1718.1312402077@death> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Le 03/08/2011 22:07, Jay Vosburgh a =C3=A9crit : > Nicolas de Peslo=C3=BCan wrote: >> Le 03/08/2011 21:03, Andy Gospodarek a =C3=A9crit : >>> Distributions benefit from version numbers on userspace utils. It >>> would probably be better to keep ifenslave's version number as it i= s >>> to help those maintaining those distro packages. >> >> As one of the maintainers for the ifenslave package on Debian, I per= fectly >> understand the need for an upstream version, but as such, I expected= the >> upstream version number to change when the file change... Version nu= mbers >> in Debian use upstream version numbers when available and add a subv= ersion >> number for Debian specific changes. I would expect to change the ver= sion >> number and not only the Debian subversion when the only change is a = new >> upstream version. > > One thing to remember here is that currently very few (perhaps > no) distros use the ifenslave.c that comes with mainline. The distro= s > I'm familiar with configure bonding via sysfs, either directly in > initscripts / sysconfig, or via a shell script ifenslave (which I > believe is what Debian has). Many distros still install it in > /sbin/ifenslave, but it isn't used by the network configuration stuff= =2E The ifenslave package on Debian provide two things: - The binary ifenslave, simply compiled from mainline ifenslave.c. - A plug-in for ifupdown to allow for bonding related options in /etc/n= etwork/interfaces. I can=20 confirm that this plug-in doesn't use the ifenslave command, but sysfs,= since version 1.1.0-12=20 (current stable version of this package is 1.1.0-17). > The ifenslave.c in mainline is pretty much just a legacy for > backwards compatibility; it has not had a bug fix since 2005 (a few t= ypo > repairs since then), and no major functional changes since before the > git era. > > I was considering proposing feature removal for ifenslave.c and > the ioctl API to add and remove slaves, but some discussion a few mon= ths > ago indicated that there are apparently still some users out there (I= 'd > guess embedded of some variety). Unfortunately, there exist *many* how-to that suggest to use ifenslave,= causing many users to use it=20 instead of sysfs for bonding setup. At least, we can: - update the bonding documentation to clarify that ifenslave is depreca= ted (and move most ifenslave=20 related stuffs at the end of the documentation); - possibly issue a warning when the API is used, suggesting to use sysf= s instead. I can take care of the documentation update if appropriate. Nicolas.