Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 10:45:04 -0800 From: "Crist J. Clark" <crist.clark@attbi.com> To: Archie Cobbs <archie@dellroad.org>, Julian Elischer <julian@elischer.org>, freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Patches to if_loop + the interface cloning framework Message-ID: <20020304104504.F87533@blossom.cjclark.org> In-Reply-To: <20020304202404.B1633@straylight.oblivion.bg>; from roam@ringlet.net on Mon, Mar 04, 2002 at 08:24:04PM %2B0200 References: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0203011122520.12215-100000@InterJet.elischer.org> <200203040455.g244tr429559@arch20m.dellroad.org> <20020304101049.D87533@blossom.cjclark.org> <20020304202404.B1633@straylight.oblivion.bg>
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On Mon, Mar 04, 2002 at 08:24:04PM +0200, Peter Pentchev wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 04, 2002 at 10:10:49AM -0800, Crist J. Clark wrote:
> > On Sun, Mar 03, 2002 at 08:55:53PM -0800, Archie Cobbs wrote:
> > > Julian Elischer writes:
> > > > I think loopback is not really 'optional' and should come as soon
> > > > as you have any networking at all.
> > >
> > > Why? From a theoretical standpoint, there's nothing mandatory
> > > about it. E.g., consider a machine that is only a router, has
> > > no users, etc. It doesn't need one.
> >
> > Try to build a kernel without,
> >
> > pseudo-device loop # Network loopback
> >
> > And see what happens.
>
> I think that you and Archie are speaking at cross purposes;
> he means that the loopback interface is not really necessary
> for any theoretical networking model, while you point out that
> the assumption that there will always be a loopback interface
> has gained very firm ground in many places all around the network
> subsystem of the FreeBSD kernel. In theory, it should still be
> possible to rework the code in those places, so that the kernel
> does not rely on the loopback all that much :)
>
> (Not that I would be the one to actually try to *do* that.. :)
Exactly. I was just pointing out that this may not exactly be a
trivial thing to do in practice. It may not need a loopback in a
theoretical sense, but you need one to build the network code as it is
currently written.
--
Crist J. Clark | cjclark@alum.mit.edu
| cjclark@jhu.edu
http://people.freebsd.org/~cjc/ | cjc@freebsd.org
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