FreeLists / openbeosnetteam / [openbeosnetteam] Re: Now it seems this thing works! :)

[philippe.houdoin@xxxxxxx]

Bruno wrote:
> [/boot/home/development/cvs/openbeos/net_kit/source/apps/ifconfig]> ./
> ifconfig -a
> sis9000: flags=39<UP,RUNNING,MULTICAST,BROADCAST> mtu 1500
>         inet 192.168.157.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast
> 192.168.157.255
> loop0: flags=119<UP,RUNNING,MULTICAST,LOOPBACK> mtu 16384
> 
> BTW, wouldn't it be better to add something more standard as the 
> interface name? making it be the name of the chipset being used (the 
> driver being used, actually) makes things confusing. I like the ethN 
> style from Linux.

Please no!
Don't you ever have to remember from memory which of eth0 or eth1 is 
the 3Com card in this routing computer? 

And, BTW, "eth" stands for Ethernet, and not all interface are
ethernet ones... even if most are, that's right.

I find more usefull, from a user pov, to read in an 
interface list:

tulip/0
tulip/1
loop0

Or 

tulip/0
3com/0
serial/0
loop0

Than

eth0
eth1
loop0

Because it's not easy to match the name to the slot behind the 
computer... Sometimes it's a matter of form recognition, you know ;-)

If you want a prettier interface name (I want too), 
go for a real name, like the net_server BNetDevice show in "Network" pref. But 
this need the /dev/net/* drivers API to be update, by adding a ioctl 
NET_GET_PRETTY_NAME for example, something we can't do for BeOS's network 
drivers, obviously.

For BONE, Be seems to follow these rules:

- for old drivers, the interface module returns "/dev/net/xxxx/<n>" as 
interface name for each device found.
/me thinks we should forget about the "/dev/net/" part

- for new interfaces (now as kernel modules, not anymore as 
/dev/net/* drivers), there is a char * ifname entry in bone_interface_t module 
info struct, which let any new interface modules returns a 
great pretty name, like "LighSpeed EtherEngine #0", or what ever wanted.
The "loop0" and "serial" are example of new interfaces modules in BONE.

Maybe we could do something along this, too.

Let's our future preferences app (and maybe even ifconfig?) display
the interface kind in litteral (ethernet, serial, atm, tokenring, etc).

Note: this naming is unrelated to the internal interface index, 
which is a global key for an interface for all the stack...

-Philippe