Subject: Re: [PATCH] net: Add etun driver

From: Patrick McHardy <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 09 Apr 2007 22:11:29 +0200

Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> The core mechanism for network configuration does not support creating
> virtual devices in a extensible reusable way.
> 
> In particular the tunnel types supported by iproute2 are hard coded
> into the user space tool and into the kernel interface.  The interface
> seems to be not the least bit extensible for creating new types of 
> non hardware backed network devices.

Yes, it sucks.

> So I don't see a readily usable mechanism for network configuration in
> netlink.

Thats why I suggested that we should create one, ideally before adding
more sysfs/proc/ioctl/... based interfaces, which we'll have a hard time
getting rid of again.

I could take care of this if you don't mind waiting until 2.6.23.

> The fact that netlink it uses unreliable packets and an
> asynchronous interface just adds to the difficulty in making use of
> it.

Its reliable on the userspace->kernel path as long as you don't use
MSG_DONTWAIT.