I think ATM and FR would benifit from the net_fifo idea.
On Wed, Jun 07, 2000 at 08:29:45AM -0700, Ben Greear wrote:
> Gleb Natapov wrote:
> >
> > Mitchell Blank Jr wrote:
> > >
> > > Really we need a new structure "net_fifo?" in order to divorce
> > > the queuing from the concept of a net_device. Anything that
> > > wants to look to userland and the protocol stacks as a net_device
> > > should, wheteher or not you feel they are just a packet mangler
> > > or not.
> > >
> >
> > Excellent idea. net_device should represent physical device and provide
> > functionality of network device (hard_start_xmit, set_mac_address,
> > set_multicast_list, ...) but not functionality of second layer
> > (hard_header, hard_header_parse, ...). The functionality of ethernet
> > should be in ethernet net_fifo, functionality of vlan in vlan net_fifo,
> > bridge in bridge net_fifo. net_fifo is what user sees as network
> > interface. Third layer (ip, ipx, ...) communicates only with net_fifo
> > (and not with net_device) and each net_fifo may communicate with one or
> > more net_devices (bridging or bonding).
> >
> > Are there problems with such architecture ?
>
> Not a bad idea, if there is enough that can be split out, but I see very
> little
> that is not common between the current net_device and some net_fifo that can
> replace it. For example, you will need some sort of hard_start_xmit in
> the net_device to send it to the lower level. There is no particular reason
> why someone could not implement a queue in a VLAN, for example, that would
> buffer, and even provide pushback to higher levels, feeding the lower device
> (wich may be ethernet, or even be ppp/FR/ATM (think bridged)). Just because
> it's not real
> hardware doesn't mean it doesn't logically hard_start_xmit.
>
> Is multi-cast / mac_address used in anything besides ethernet? If we're
> trying
> to abstract all physical net_devices, then we should make sure it really fits,
> otherwise just stick with what already works.
>
> Also, if it becomes clear that the large majority of the net_device
> functionality
> would need to go into the net_fifo, I would argue that it may be cleaner to
> instead create a new lower level, maybe hard_net_device, or something like
> that
> so that we don't have to change a well understood interface (net_device)....
>
> --
> Ben Greear (greearb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) http://www.candelatech.com
> Author of ScryMUD: scry.wanfear.com 4444 (Released under GPL)
> http://scry.wanfear.com http://scry.wanfear.com/~greear
--
James R. Leu
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