der Mouse  <mouse@Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA> writes:
> > If a device is gone, it should be gone completely from the kernel.
> > [...]
> 
> I'm not sure I agree with this.  This sounds as though you oppose the
> notion that it's reasonable to pop out a card, walk down the hall, pop
> another card in instead, and (assuming both drops are on the same
> network) continue to work, including having all existing connections
> survive.
> 
> And that means not nuking connections just because they happen to go
> out the now-removed interface.

Who said anything about nuking connections?

since when do connections die when you ifconfig an interface down, for
instance, or when the network routes flap a bit?

Now, you may have to do special setup in your network (DHCP/bootp), or
in your scripts on your system so that your interface gets configured
up with the same address, but you'd have to do that anyway even if all
interface information weren't nuked.  (the new card should by default
not be seen as taking over the old card's info, certainly, so you'd
definitely need special configurationn.)


(In reality, i don't think that most people want to do what you
suggest; i'd guess that for things like that they want to use sane
protocols that allow a machine to migrate...  i don't have familiarity
with that type of work/protocol, but i know that others here do...
Jonathan?)


cgd
-- 
Chris Demetriou - cgd@netbsd.org - http://www.netbsd.org/People/Pages/cgd.html
Disclaimer: Not speaking for NetBSD, just expressing my own opinion.