From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Alexei Starovoitov Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC 0/5] net: L2 only interfaces Date: Tue, 25 Aug 2015 16:20:25 -0700 Message-ID: <20150825232021.GA8482@Alexeis-MacBook-Pro-2.local> References: <1440543015-14693-1-git-send-email-f.fainelli@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org, davem@davemloft.net, andrew@lunn.ch, linux@roeck-us.net, jiri@resnulli.us, sfeldma@gmail.com To: Florian Fainelli Return-path: Received: from mail-yk0-f178.google.com ([209.85.160.178]:33612 "EHLO mail-yk0-f178.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755822AbbHYXU3 (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Aug 2015 19:20:29 -0400 Received: by ykll84 with SMTP id l84so169509809ykl.0 for ; Tue, 25 Aug 2015 16:20:29 -0700 (PDT) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1440543015-14693-1-git-send-email-f.fainelli@gmail.com> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 03:50:10PM -0700, Florian Fainelli wrote: > Hi all, > > 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! > > Florian Fainelli (5): > net: add IFF_L2_ONLY flag > net: ipv4: Skip in_dev initialization for IFF_L2_ONLY interfaces > net: ipv6: Skip in6_dev initialization for IFF_L2_ONLY interfaces interesting idea! Do you know how kernel/iproute2 will react to lack of in_dev? No crashes I'm assuming, but what kind of errors are thrown? imo great first step to have lightweight netdevs. +1 for 'net_port' in the future.