From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 26 13:10:34 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AC0F01065690; Mon, 26 May 2008 13:10:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ade@FreeBSD.org) Received: from panix.lovett.com (panix.lovett.com [166.84.7.128]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7E8338FC33; Mon, 26 May 2008 13:10:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ade@FreeBSD.org) Received: from [24.216.255.15] (helo=inferno.lab.lovett.com ident=ade) by panix.lovett.com with esmtpsa (TLSv1:AES128-SHA:128) (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1K0bu0-0003eG-4a; Mon, 26 May 2008 12:34:12 +0000 Message-Id: <5D4AF8D7-88A7-4197-A0FE-7CA992EE5F96@FreeBSD.org> From: Ade Lovett To: Robert Watson In-Reply-To: <20080525105726.O39741@fledge.watson.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v919.2) Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 05:34:09 -0700 References: <20080524111715.T64552@fledge.watson.org> <1211640498.1510.8.camel@localhost> <20080524165519.K9809@fledge.watson.org> <20080525105726.O39741@fledge.watson.org> X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.919.2) Cc: arch@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org, net@freebsd.org Subject: Re: HEAD UP: non-MPSAFE network drivers to be disabled (was: 8.0 network stack MPsafety goals (fwd)) X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 26 May 2008 13:10:34 -0000 On May 25, 2008, at 02:58 , Robert Watson wrote: > While I'd be quite supportive of something along these lines, I > think it probably is more work to port SLIP to userspace than to > hack the current code a little bit to be MPSAFE, assuming it remains > supported with the revised tty code. SLIP is a fairly straight- > forward piece of code, as long as you don't try to understand the > line discipline stuff. :-) Given that this is (a) 2008 and (b) 8.x we're talking about, are there really that many consumers of SLIP to warrant it being carried forward at all? Seems to me that it would not be unreasonable to give a heads up that the current kernel-space ppp/slip (and, for that matter, plip) drivers are going away some time before 8.0-RELEASE, pppd is more than adequately replaced by userland-ppp or netgraph, and if there's some critical need by someone to have SLIP and/or PLIP, then they'll need to step up to the plate to do the necessary re-implementation. Or stick with 7.x, which would be unaffected by this. We have a lot of network drivers that are potentially up for axing with the move to MPSAFE. Why not push just a little harder and slice out some serious legacy code? It's all well and good to be able to say that the current release of the kernel supports hardware that hasn't been used, other than in idiosyncratic situations (yes, ahc(4), I'm looking at you) for 5+ years, but it seems that we have an opportunity here to break out the Danish Ax[tm] in anger, and do some heavy-duty culling before 8.0-REL. -aDe