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

["David Reid" <dreid@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 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

Well, the style we're using is almost the same...

tulip0
loop0
ec9xx0

and so on...


>
> 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 things like ifconfig I don't, and can't see the need. BONE's ifconfig
used to drive me round the wall as it required all sorts of '/' and so on
that should never have been there. Let's keep is simple.

>
> 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
>
>
>