From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Apr 8 23:16:41 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 441CF16A400 for ; Sat, 8 Apr 2006 23:16:41 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mwm-keyword-freebsdhackers.102a7e@mired.org) Received: from mired.org (dsl092-153-074.wdc2.dsl.speakeasy.net [66.92.153.74]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 92D2443D45 for ; Sat, 8 Apr 2006 23:16:40 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from mwm-keyword-freebsdhackers.102a7e@mired.org) Received: (qmail 67496 invoked by uid 1001); 8 Apr 2006 23:16:40 -0000 Received: by localhost.mired.org (tmda-sendmail, from uid 1001); Sat, 08 Apr 2006 19:16:38 -0400 (EDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <17464.17494.251794.271711@bhuda.mired.org> Date: Sat, 8 Apr 2006 19:16:38 -0400 To: David Taylor In-Reply-To: <20060408224140.GA15366@outcold.yadt.co.uk> References: <20060407225742.GA21619@odin.ac.hmc.edu> <20060407230247.GH16344@submonkey.net> <4437C9F6.5000008@samsco.org> <17463.65076.117616.563302@bhuda.mired.org> <20060408224140.GA15366@outcold.yadt.co.uk> X-Mailer: VM 7.17 under 21.4 (patch 19) "Constant Variable" XEmacs Lucid X-Primary-Address: mwm@mired.org X-face: "5Mnwy%?j>IIV\)A=):rjWL~NB2aH[}Yq8Z=u~vJ`"(,&SiLvbbz2W`; h9L,Yg`+vb1>RG% *h+%X^n0EZd>TM8_IB;a8F?(Fb"lw'IgCoyM.[Lg#r\ X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.0.3 (Seattle Slew) From: Mike Meyer 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 23:16:41 -0000 In <20060408224140.GA15366@outcold.yadt.co.uk>, David Taylor typed: > 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, You're right - but at least you have the option of using different types of cards to get different names. I agree that this sucks, but it's better than nothing. I tried to find out how to tell the difference between ethernet interfaces on Linux. Seems that the 2.6 kernel can assign different names to the ethernet devices at each reboot. Um, yeah. Solutions for this problem all seem to involve assigning an arbitrary name based on the MAC address. This has two problems: 1) you have to have a mapping somewhere of mac addresses to cards so you know where to plug in the wan port vs. the lan port. 2) if you replace a dead card with an identical card, your configuration breaks. http://www.mired.org/consulting.html Independent Network/Unix/Perforce consultant, email for more information.