he basic libxo helper stuff first, add
> whatever refactoring bits
> you need, and then individual commits for each part of ifconfig
> (bridge, wifi, vlan, ethernet,
> etc) so they can be individually reviewed by a smaller set of people
> who focus on those areas.
>
>
>
> -adrian
>
> On Sun, 26 Jul 2026 at 15:54, Paige Thompson <paigeadele@gmail.com> wrote=
:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I have a patch for sbin/ifconfig in the works that I'd like to
> > eventually submit at some point. The patch covers the full summary of
> > interfaces and allows you to export interface data as JSON, XML or
> > HTML. It uses a library that is already in-tree and used by netstat
> > (you can export route tables in JSON / XML or HTML already. This patch
> > does pretty much the same thing for ifconfig but it's obviously a
> > little more complicated considering the number of options it had to
> > cover:
> >
> > fconfig_libxo_support.patch:
> > https://gist.github.com/paigeadelethompson/5dd1b998d599ed7d147fd37a6aa9=
0b2e
> >
> > I've also done my best to ensure that it doesn't change how ifconfig
> > normally displays summaries; it still uses libxo but defaults to
> > --libxo text if you don't specify --libxo as an argument and I've
> > maintained the same output format that it had with all of the printf
> > statements.
> >
> > I've been testing it thoroughly, and all of the work I'm doing going
> > forward I've been tracking on this gist, I've also updated the
> > original patch file a couple of times. I've never submitted a patch to
> > FreeBSD before, but I'm really okay with this taking as long as it
> > needs to because I think it's particularly useful and I'd prefer to
> > get it right the first time rather than have it ruin somebody's day.
> > I'm also interested in submitting two other patches that I haven't
> > started yet:
> >
> > - Another for ifconfig; specifically one that would allow you to
> > configure networking interfaces from an XML file (it would use the
> > expat / bsdxml.h parser to read in ifconfig data exported with
> > `ifconfig --libxo xml` (example: https://termbin.com/efqhl )
> >
> > - a patch for route which can restore routing tables; I made a little
> > proof of concept that kind of does this with netstat / jq awhile ago:
> > https://gist.github.com/paigeadelethompson/d99e6bb0aab4ae2fa6a066217831=
840c
> > but rather the way I have in mind would essentially be:
> >
> > netstat --libxo xml -nr -F 1 > 1.xml
> > route --restore-from 1.xml
> >
> > and the patch to route would also use the in-tree expat (bsdxml.h)
> > parser that's available.
> >
> > The problem that it solves from my perspective is that its a step
> > towards eliminating the amount of complex networking configuration
> > that I have to maintain in my rc.conf which for me and I'm sure for
> > anybody who has tried to build segmented networks for jails, and
> > virtual machines it has potential to get pretty ridiculous, especially
> > routes: https://termbin.com/lrt80
> >
> > And even if I didn't have to use epairs and could use something like
> > say... if_mpe if it existed, rc.conf would still be less than ideal
> > for static protocol routing; BGP isn't even an option here yet that's
> > something else I want to work towards.
> >
> > I have to run, I've been working on this all morning, and made lots of
> > progress testing. I'll follow up this evening.
> >