Roadmap for ifnet(9) for FreeBSD 11

[Marcel Moolenaar]

On May 28, 2014, at 8:48 PM, Rui Paulo <rpaulo at FreeBSD.org> wrote:

> On May 28, 2014, atThere were at least 3 efforts on fixing this:
>> 
>> 
>> 1)  Juniper’s JUNOS is a FreeBSD based operating system that has
>>   its own (alternative) network stack, but that leverages the
>>   network drivers from FreeBSD. Juniper mechanically changed all
>>   ifnet dereferences to to accessor methods. This could have
>>   been incorporated as early as 2011, but lacked good follow
>>   through. Marcel Moolenaar was prime contact for this.
>> 
>> 2)  Andre Oppermann was sponsored in 2013 by the FreeBSD
>>   Foundation to make ifnet(9) opaque. This is not complete as of
>>   the time of this writing.
>> 
>> 3)  Gleb Smirnoff also planned to work on opaque ifnet(9), but
>>   that always has been delayed due to 1) and 2).
> 
> This is indeed needed, but it would be nice to understand what would happen if the community has comments about your patch. Will Juniper be able to integrate back those comments?  For example, I think the type "if_t" should be "ifnet_t".  Another comment I have is: why do you have to cast if_t to (struct ifnet *) in all the accessor methods? It would be better to create a private header typedef'ing if_t to struct ifnet, avoiding the copy & paste casting.

Both Gleb and Anu have answered some parts. I'll answer
the integration part: We (= Juniper) will deal with it.
There are too many cogs in the wheel for me to have a
clear picture, so I'm not going to worry about it. I
think the FreeBSD community should worry even less :-)

The important thing to realize is that the patch has a
history and a context that is not seen or understood by
the FreeBSD community. As long as everyone focusses on
the important aspects and not get lost in the minutiae,
I'm confident we're all going to be happy with the end
result, even if the interim isn't looking so good on
first sight.

HTH,

-- 
Marcel Moolenaar
marcel at xcllnt.net


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