From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Sep 28 1:22:36 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from smtp01.primenet.com (smtp01.primenet.com [206.165.6.131]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 566AB37B422 for ; Thu, 28 Sep 2000 01:22:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp01.primenet.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id BAA28730; Thu, 28 Sep 2000 01:21:49 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr02.primenet.com(206.165.6.202) via SMTP by smtp01.primenet.com, id smtpdAAAf6aGe4; Thu Sep 28 01:21:45 2000 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr02.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id BAA11602; Thu, 28 Sep 2000 01:22:26 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <200009280822.BAA11602@usr02.primenet.com> Subject: Re: Ideas about network interfaces. To: res03db2@gte.net (Robert Clark) Date: Thu, 28 Sep 2000 08:22:25 +0000 (GMT) Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <200009280418.VAA01234@gte.net> from "Robert Clark" at Sep 27, 2000 09:18:38 PM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org > A few ideas that've been in the back of my head. > > Would it make sense to have network device names abstracted one layer more? > > In other words, would it make it easier for new users, if all network > drivers were mapped to something like et0? FWIW, for AIX, Linux, SVR4, Solaris, and other modern OSs, the names are assigned sequentially, starting with en0, so as to not require script or other configuration changes. The (small) risk in this is if you were to blindly change slots on cards, configure new hardware, or otherwise ignore probe ordering, and thus confuse two cards (say the inside and the outside of your firewall). This is generally a one time possibility at install or upgrade time, and seems to be worth the risk, since the inside and outside numbering are going to be different anyway, and it will just not route packets at all, rather than compromising your security, except under rare circumstances, where you have a strange setup AND you rearrange your hardware. In any case, most people buy two of the same type of cards, so you already have the same problem with distinguishing de0 and de1 following a card replug-fest. > ATM on the other hand, (if I understand it correctly), is aware of its limits. > It hopefully would not allow itself to be oversubscribed. It either has > the capacity to handle your traffic, or it does not. But either way it will > tell you so. ATM has other problems; remind me to tell you, when we are in the same room, and you have an hour or so to kill. 8-). Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message