Subject: Re: [bonding] Add basic support for dynamic configuration of bond interfaces

From: Jeff Garzik <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 16:59:10 -0500

Ben Greear wrote:
> I would also be open to moving the VLAN ioctls over into the
> ethtool ioctl space, but that just exchanges one magic ioctl for
> another...

The key question is what is the best interface for userland to configure 
in-kernel information -that is unrelated to a specific interface-. 
ethtool ioctl space doesn't apply, because that's a per-interface API.

Opening a socket and just ioctl'ing away isn't terribly scalable in the 
long run, either.  Consider all the applications that could legitimately 
claim they need a SIOCxxx ioctl assignment, just for their little slice 
of the networking world.  Further, consider that all an ioctl is is a 
message sent to the kernel driver, perhaps sending and/or receiving some 
data.  :)

ioctls are a pain for 32/64-bit emulation layers too.  It seems much 
easier to define a netlink protocol family of some sort and communicate 
that way.

I'll poke around and see what I can come up with.

	Jeff