From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Miller Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC 0/5] net: L2 only interfaces Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2015 17:12:48 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <20150825.171248.291365392844717283.davem@davemloft.net> References: <1440543015-14693-1-git-send-email-f.fainelli@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org, andrew@lunn.ch, linux@roeck-us.net, jiri@resnulli.us, sfeldma@gmail.com To: f.fainelli@gmail.com Return-path: Received: from shards.monkeyblade.net ([149.20.54.216]:60619 "EHLO shards.monkeyblade.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751887AbbHZAMt (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Aug 2015 20:12:49 -0400 In-Reply-To: <1440543015-14693-1-git-send-email-f.fainelli@gmail.com> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: From: Florian Fainelli Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2015 15:50:10 -0700 > This patch series implements a L2 only interface concept which > basically denies any kind of IP address configuration on these > interfaces, but still allows them to be used as configuration > end-points to keep using ethtool and friends. > > A cleaner approach might be to finally come up with the concept of > net_port which a net_device would be a superset of, but this still > raises tons of questions as to whether we should be modifying > userland tools to be able to configure/query these > interfaces. During all the switch talks/discussions last year, it > seemed to me like th L2-only interface is closest we have to a > "network port". > > Comments, flames, flying tomatoes welcome! Interesting, indeed. Do you plan to extend this to defining a more minimal network device sub-type as well? Then we can pass "net_device_common" or whatever around as a common base type of actual net device "implementations". Or is you main goal just getting the L2-only semantic?