From owner-freebsd-arch Mon Mar 4 10:45: 7 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from rwcrmhc51.attbi.com (rwcrmhc51.attbi.com [204.127.198.38]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B58C437B400 for ; Mon, 4 Mar 2002 10:45:04 -0800 (PST) Received: from blossom.cjclark.org ([12.234.91.48]) by rwcrmhc51.attbi.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.27 201-229-121-127-20010626) with ESMTP id <20020304184504.MLZW2626.rwcrmhc51.attbi.com@blossom.cjclark.org>; Mon, 4 Mar 2002 18:45:04 +0000 Received: (from cjc@localhost) by blossom.cjclark.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) id g24Ij4588118; Mon, 4 Mar 2002 10:45:04 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from cjc) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2002 10:45:04 -0800 From: "Crist J. Clark" To: Archie Cobbs , Julian Elischer , freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Patches to if_loop + the interface cloning framework Message-ID: <20020304104504.F87533@blossom.cjclark.org> Reply-To: cjclark@alum.mit.edu References: <200203040455.g244tr429559@arch20m.dellroad.org> <20020304101049.D87533@blossom.cjclark.org> <20020304202404.B1633@straylight.oblivion.bg> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20020304202404.B1633@straylight.oblivion.bg>; from roam@ringlet.net on Mon, Mar 04, 2002 at 08:24:04PM +0200 X-URL: http://people.freebsd.org/~cjc/ Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Mon, Mar 04, 2002 at 08:24:04PM +0200, Peter Pentchev wrote: > On Mon, Mar 04, 2002 at 10:10:49AM -0800, Crist J. Clark wrote: > > On Sun, Mar 03, 2002 at 08:55:53PM -0800, Archie Cobbs wrote: > > > Julian Elischer writes: > > > > I think loopback is not really 'optional' and should come as soon > > > > as you have any networking at all. > > > > > > Why? From a theoretical standpoint, there's nothing mandatory > > > about it. E.g., consider a machine that is only a router, has > > > no users, etc. It doesn't need one. > > > > Try to build a kernel without, > > > > pseudo-device loop # Network loopback > > > > And see what happens. > > I think that you and Archie are speaking at cross purposes; > he means that the loopback interface is not really necessary > for any theoretical networking model, while you point out that > the assumption that there will always be a loopback interface > has gained very firm ground in many places all around the network > subsystem of the FreeBSD kernel. In theory, it should still be > possible to rework the code in those places, so that the kernel > does not rely on the loopback all that much :) > > (Not that I would be the one to actually try to *do* that.. :) Exactly. I was just pointing out that this may not exactly be a trivial thing to do in practice. It may not need a loopback in a theoretical sense, but you need one to build the network code as it is currently written. -- Crist J. Clark | cjclark@alum.mit.edu | cjclark@jhu.edu http://people.freebsd.org/~cjc/ | cjc@freebsd.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message