Subject: Re: Implementing interface media type autodetection?
To: None <tech-net@NetBSD.ORG>
From: der Mouse <mouse@Collatz.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
List: tech-net
Date: 06/08/1996 20:52:50
>> [...autodetecting media for network interfaces that can handle more
>> than one media type...]

> I think that a better option would be similar to what Matt Thomas (i
> think it was him, anyway 8-) suggested, i.e. move the media type
> completely out of the 'link' flags.

I entirely agree with this, but I would add one thing to what cgd says
after that (which I deleted here): I'd also add a type which is,
essentially, continuous autodetect - if the box loses carrier on the
current media, it should rotate through the available media until it
finds carrier again.  (Yeah, there are lots of cases where this isn't
what you want, but there are also cases where it is, and having a cron
job do an "ifconfig auto" once a minute is a gross kludge. :-)

Of course, passing this back through SIOCGIFMEDIA could be interesting,
perhaps it'd be a bit that got |ed into the returned value...or were
you considering making the SIOC[GS]IFMEDIA ioctls use strings?

					der Mouse

			    mouse@collatz.mcrcim.mcgill.edu