From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Apr 8 19:41:58 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: hackers@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2315316A403 for ; Sat, 8 Apr 2006 19:41:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Received: from pooker.samsco.org (pooker.samsco.org [168.103.85.57]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0150143D79 for ; Sat, 8 Apr 2006 19:41:45 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Received: from [10.10.3.185] ([69.15.205.254]) (authenticated bits=0) by pooker.samsco.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k38Jff6l019041; Sat, 8 Apr 2006 13:41:42 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Message-ID: <443811EF.2020509@samsco.org> Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 13:41:35 -0600 From: Scott Long User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7.12) Gecko/20060206 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mike Meyer References: <20060407225742.GA21619@odin.ac.hmc.edu> <20060407230247.GH16344@submonkey.net> <4437C9F6.5000008@samsco.org> <17463.65076.117616.563302@bhuda.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <17463.65076.117616.563302@bhuda.mired.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=3.8 tests=none autolearn=failed version=3.1.1 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.1 (2006-03-10) on pooker.samsco.org Cc: hackers@freebsd.org, Ceri Davies Subject: Re: Using any network interface whatsoever X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 08 Apr 2006 19:41:58 -0000 Mike Meyer wrote: > In <4437C9F6.5000008@samsco.org>, Scott Long typed: > >>Well, the real question is why we force the details of driver names onto >>users. Network and storage drivers are especially guilty of this, but >>tty devices also are annoying. > > > Because Unix has always made the hardware details available to > administrators. Times have changed so that users now need to do things > that used to be restricted to administrators. > > This historical behavior is a *good* thing. If all devices of type > "foo" are just named "foo" and assigned numbers by the system, then I > have no control over the names. If I don't care which is which, this > isn't a problem. If I do care - for instance, I want to distinguish > between the ethernet interface that's on the internet and the one > that's on my LAN, or I want root to be on the disk with the root file > system on it - then this is a PITA, because every time I add hardware > to the system, or re-arrange the cards in the cage, or similar things, > I risk breaking the system configuration. If the device names are > completely determined by the hardware settings, then this doesn't > happen. > > Real world examples of this type of breakage include a FreeBSD 4.x > system with SCSI disks that failed to boot when a USB mass storage > device was plugged into it, and a Solaris system that started swapping > on it's Ingres raw database partition after a disk was added. > > If a system is meant for desktop use where you typically have at most > one of anything, then hiding the names from the users is a good > thing. In a server environment, where you may have multiple instances > of several different device types, then being able to easily tell > which is which is a good thing. > >