devd/devctl

[Doug Barton]

On Sat, 13 Sep 2003, M. Warner Losh wrote:

> In message: <20030913142107.V85817 at 12-234-22-23.pyvrag.nggov.pbz>
>             Doug Barton <DougB at freebsd.org> writes:
> : That functionality is being ported back to the vendor, if it hasn't been
> : already. If we want really cool whizbang features that are more specific
> : to us, we _should_ be looking at stuff like devd. The trick is definig
> : which problem space we're addressing at any given moment. :)
>
> You can't do it in devd.  You must be able to either (a) tell a
> running dhclient about arrival/departures of interfaces

Ok, maybe I misunderstand, but wouldn't _this_ be the right thing for
devd to do? In other words, devd should be able to notice this, and
devd.conf should be able to define what I want to do with this like
sending a signal to dhclient. Then we can move to the dhclient problem
space, and define behavior in dhclient that says "when X happens, I need
to do Y."

One way to do this would be to define multiple interfaces in
dhclient.conf, and add an "optional" flag to each interface stanza. Then
when dhclient receives a signal, it rescans the list of interfaces it
knows about looking for link. This is just a conceptual example of
course, other solutions might well be possible.

> or (b) run multiple dhclients.

This is evil, and basically undoable with the current state of things,
but it might be possible down the road, although I still think it's evil
for other reasons.

Doug

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