RFC: Create a default wlan for wireless NICs

[John Baldwin]

On 5/25/18 5:08 PM, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:
>> >From the bikeshed department....
>>
>> The change at https://reviews.freebsd.org/D15481 would create a default
>> wlan for wireless NICs by default.  The default wlan's ifnet name would
>> match the name of the adapter (e.g. "iwn0").  Existing configurations
>> would still be honored and people who need multiple wlan devices can
>> still do so using existing configuration variables in rc.conf, etc.
>>
>> However, the out of the box experience on a new machine would be that
>> 'ifconfig iwn0' would Just Work(tm) for wireless NICs as it does now for
>> wired NICs, and you could just use 'ifconfig_iwn0="WPA DHCP"' in rc.conf.
>> I think this is more consistent with how we present NICs to users in
>> general.
> 
> Yes, Blue Please, with a red stripe.  :)
> 
> I asked about documentation in the review, but about all I can
> find is:
> /etc/defaults/rc.conf:
> #wlans_ath0="wlan0"               # wlan(4) interfaces for ath0 device
> 
> There is probably stuff in the wiki that would need updated though.

I think there are also installer bits that could be simplified.  Right now
the installer has to use a special sysctl to identify wireless NICs so
it can add them to the list of NICs, etc.  It also then creates wlan_foo
variables in rc.conf.  That would need to be updated for this change as well.

-- 
John Baldwin