From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Apr 8 22:41:46 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 31CE516A405 for ; Sat, 8 Apr 2006 22:41:46 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from davidt@yadt.co.uk) Received: from outcold.yadt.co.uk (outcold.yadt.co.uk [81.187.204.178]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CCD9943D5F for ; Sat, 8 Apr 2006 22:41:42 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from davidt@yadt.co.uk) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by outcold.yadt.co.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2B8361DD4BD; Sat, 8 Apr 2006 23:41:41 +0100 (BST) Received: from outcold.yadt.co.uk ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (outcold.yadt.co.uk [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 99964-11; Sat, 8 Apr 2006 23:41:40 +0100 (BST) Received: by outcold.yadt.co.uk (Postfix, from userid 1001) id AD2D61DD4A4; Sat, 8 Apr 2006 23:41:40 +0100 (BST) Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 23:41:40 +0100 From: David Taylor To: Mike Meyer Message-ID: <20060408224140.GA15366@outcold.yadt.co.uk> Mail-Followup-To: Mike Meyer , hackers@freebsd.org References: <20060407225742.GA21619@odin.ac.hmc.edu> <20060407230247.GH16344@submonkey.net> <4437C9F6.5000008@samsco.org> <17463.65076.117616.563302@bhuda.mired.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-15 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <17463.65076.117616.563302@bhuda.mired.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.1i X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new 2.3.3 (20050822) at yadt.co.uk Cc: hackers@freebsd.org 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 22:41:46 -0000 On Sat, 08 Apr 2006, 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. That doesn't quite work, though. Unless you require everyone wanting to distinguish between LAN and WAN interfaces uses different types of hardware for each card, they'll still end up with xl0 and xl1 (or whatever), which is in no way better than eth0 and eth1, except that it means you have the option of looking up what on earth "xl" actually means to get a vague description of what type of hardware it is, rather than checking the dmesg for xlX or ethX. -- David Taylor