Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] net: Allow ethtool to set interface in loopback mode.

From: Ben Hutchings <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2011 01:21:44 +0000

On Tue, 2011-01-04 at 16:36 -0800, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> On Tue,  4 Jan 2011 16:30:01 -0800
> Mahesh Bandewar <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> > This patch enables ethtool to set the loopback mode on a given interface.
> > By configuring the interface in loopback mode in conjunction with a policy
> > route / rule, a userland application can stress the egress / ingress path
> > exposing the flows of the change in progress and potentially help developer(s)
> > understand the impact of those changes without even sending a packet out
> > on the network.
> > 
> > Following set of commands illustrates one such example -
> > 	a) ip -4 addr add 192.168.1.1/24 dev eth1
> > 	b) ip -4 rule add from all iif eth1 lookup 250
> > 	c) ip -4 route add local 0/0 dev lo proto kernel scope host table 250
> > 	d) arp -Ds 192.168.1.100 eth1
> > 	e) arp -Ds 192.168.1.200 eth1
> > 	f) sysctl -w net.ipv4.ip_nonlocal_bind=1
> > 	g) sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.accept_local=1
> > 	# Assuming that the machine has 8 cores
> > 	h) taskset 000f netserver -L 192.168.1.200
> > 	i) taskset 00f0 netperf -t TCP_CRR -L 192.168.1.100 -H 192.168.1.200 -l 30
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Mahesh Bandewar <[email-masked]>
> > Reviewed-by: Ben Hutchings <[email-masked]>
> 
> Since this is a boolean it SHOULD go into ethtool_flags rather than
> being a high level operation.

It could do, but I though ETHTOOL_{G,S}FLAGS were intended for
controlling offload features.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings, Senior Software Engineer, Solarflare Communications
Not speaking for my employer; that's the marketing department's job.
They asked us to note that Solarflare product names are trademarked.