From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jun 7 01:35:56 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9F2F116A4CE; Mon, 7 Jun 2004 01:35:56 +0000 (GMT) Received: from rwcrmhc12.comcast.net (rwcrmhc12.comcast.net [216.148.227.85]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 882A243D55; Sun, 6 Jun 2004 18:35:56 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from julian@elischer.org) Received: from interjet.elischer.org ([24.7.73.28]) by comcast.net (rwcrmhc12) with ESMTP id <2004060701355501400i4q3me>; Mon, 7 Jun 2004 01:35:56 +0000 Received: from localhost (localhost.elischer.org [127.0.0.1]) by InterJet.elischer.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA15412; Sun, 6 Jun 2004 18:35:53 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 6 Jun 2004 18:35:51 -0700 (PDT) From: Julian Elischer To: FreeBSD current users Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: net@freebsd.org Subject: HEADSUP! netgraph Metadata changing. X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 07 Jun 2004 01:35:56 -0000 If you don't know or care about netgraph metadata (e.g. packet priority) then this shouldn't worry you. We are changing the netgraph metadata facility (in which arbitrary metadata can be sent with a packet through processing) to use the mbuf TAG facility that has been imported by sam. Netgraph tags will use different cookies to the standard set of tags imported with the code, so they will live in a separate namespace, however they will be handled during GC and manipulation by the standard tag handling code (Thanks to Sam for giving us the cookie facility). In the checked in code there are only a couple of users of metadata, but there may be 3rd parties out there that use it. If so the authors should contact me as soon as possible to co-ordinate the changeover. For example the BW_MAN bandwith manager uses metadata to tag packets selected by its ipfw netgraph node. Currently the biggest user of metadata is the frame relay LMI node that tags LMI packets with a higher priority in order to meet timing constraints given by the standards. In addition the ng_ksocket node adds info into metadata and I suspect there are people using that. julian