Future of the ie(4) driver
Robert Watson
rwatson at FreeBSD.org
Fri Jul 6 09:56:57 UTC 2007
On Thu, 5 Jul 2007, Kip Macy wrote:
>> I am the proud owner of one ie(4) board.
>>
>> just now, the machine using it is running -Stable, but I can easily arrange
>> for dual booting with -Current.
>
> An outstanding issue for it is that the NET_GIANT infrastructure is going
> away in 7.0, so if_ie will also need to be locked in order to remain.
That's actually not the case -- NET_NEEDS_GIANT eliminates support for
non-MPSAFE protocol stacks, not non-MPSAFE device drivers. IFF_NEEDSGIANT
will, sadly, remain, as several core drivers/frameworks still require Giant.
Things on the chopping board for 7.0, hopefully to be restored for 7.1 once
locked, are:
- i4b
- netatm
- ng_h4
Things removed entirely:
- KAME IPSEC, replaced with FAST_IPSEC now it supports IPv6
However, I do hope to make non-MPSAFE network interface drivers go away in
8-CURRENT, so people who want their non-MPSAFE network interface drivers to
persist need to either lock them down or work with someone to test locking
patches for them.
Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge
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