Re: [ofa-general] Updated InfiniBand/RDMA merge plans for 2.6.24

[Steve Wise <swise@opengridcomputing.com>]

Roland Dreier wrote:
>  > No mention about the iwarp port space issue?
> 
> I don't think we're at a stage where I'm prepared to merge something--
> we all agree the latest patch has serious drawbacks, and it commits us
> to a suboptimal interface that is userspace-visible.
> 

Fair enough.

>  > I'm at a loss as to how to proceed.
> 
> Could we try to do some cleanups to the net core to make the alias
> stuff less painful?  eg is there any sane way to make it possible for
> a device that creates 'eth0' to also create an 'iw0' alias without an
> assigning an address?
> 

Well, "alias" interfaces really don't exist.  ethX:iw is really just 
adding a address record (struct in_ifaddr) to ethX.  So in the current 
core design, adding an alias without an address is really adding the 
alias with address 0.0.0.0.  And I think the core net code assumes if an 
in_ifaddr struct exists for a device, then its IP address is indeed valid.

So I think the changes wouldn't be small to enhance the design to add a 
concept of an alias interface.

I'll look into this more though.

Steve.