Re: (Semi-random) thoughts on device tree structure and devfs

[David Young <dyoung%pobox.com@localhost>]

On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 12:37:39AM +0100, Matthias Drochner wrote:
> 
> dyoung%pobox.com@localhost said:
> > Then we can, as you suggested at the top of this thread, create the
> > ether(4) pseudo-device that is analogous to audio(4).  Let us attach a
> > particular ether(4) instance to an ethernet h/w instance according to
> > the h/w's properties.
> 
> This looks somewhat shortsighted. "ethernet" is no interface in a
> technical sense anymore. It is just perhaps a tag put at protocols
> which use 48-bit MAC addresses and can be bridged to other protocols
> of that kind. But then, where do draw the line? FDDI can be bridged
> to ethernet as well, so would you call it "ether"?

It looks to me like the FDDI frame format differs from ethernet's,
however, both frames carry 48-bit source and destination addresses.
The code in fddi_input() and in fddi_output() resembles the code in
ether_input() and in ether_output(); perhaps we can extract some of the
common code into ieee802like_input() and _output() for re-use?  Maybe
fxp should have an ieee802like interface for the bridge to use?  Is that
what you have in mind?  If not, can you please be more specific about
your concerns?

Dave

-- 
David Young             OJC Technologies
dyoung%ojctech.com@localhost      Urbana, IL * (217) 278-3933