On Thu, Jun 08, 2000 at 10:24:16PM +0200, Lennert Buytenhek wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, Andi Kleen wrote:
>
> > > > The current kernel infrastructure for packet mangling may still need
> > > > some adjustments, but it at least exists. I'm encouraging to consider
> > > > VLAN implementation as just a netfilter module.
> > >
> > > "All the world is an IP net"? How should I run IPX over my VLANs then?
> >
> > Netfilter is not an IP only thing. It is a generic framework for
> > packet mangling. Although currently only IPv4 and IPv6 netfilter
> > implementations exist it would be no big problem to add ``raw
> > ethernet'' netfilter hooks.
>
> Raw ethernet netfilter hooks, as are IPX netfilter hooks by the way, are
> currently a nice blue cloud in the sky.
They are not hard to add. Just so far nobody needed them. You could
either hook them into the device's hard_start_xmit function or
as an netfilter qdisc for the devices with queue (both requires no
additional instructions in the fast path when not used)
> As we're getting into the architectural purity business anyway, does it
> make a whole lot of sense to netfilter on two different protocol levels?
I think it does. netfilter is not a single entinity, it is a hook
infrastructure. When multi layer filtering is required it can be integrated.
That's generally.
I haven't thought hard enough about the VLAN problem to decide if it
really makes sense to implement it as netfilter module. The net_fifo
idea seems to have some merits too (struct net_device probably does too
many things at once currently and some hash tables/trees for device management
probably couldn't hurt)
-Andi
--
This is like TV. I don't like TV.
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