Re: ipv4 and ipv6 stacks for new link layers?

[Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>]

On Fri, Feb 23, 2007 at 01:49:47PM +0200, Markku Savela wrote:
> The IPv6 and IPv4 both seem to be rather akwardly hardcoded to support
> only link layers they know.
> 
> This is a pity, because it would be so easy to make the both stacks
> totally independent of the actual link layers. It only needs one (or
> two) new function pointer in net_device. This function should do the
> conversion from IPv4/IPv6 address into corresponding hardware
> multicast/broadcast address.
> 
> In both IPv4 and IPv6, all places where symbols ARPHRD_* are
> reference, are suspect (there are some related to tunnels, which may
> be appropriate). For example, in ipv4/arp.c arp_mc_map would call this
> mapping function, if provided. Similarly ipv6/ndisc.c ndisc_mc_map.
> 
> In ipv6/addrconf.c the ivp6_generate_eui64 may possibly need yet
> another netdev function provided by the driver.
> 
> The current Ethernet specific code for these mappings could be moved
> from the ipv6/ipv6 into eth.c, and ether_setup would give defaults for
> the functions.
> 
> [I run into this while trying to do a netdev to a device is not known
> by the stacks, and IPv6 even refuses to start on it (because of the
> ivp6_generate_eui64 fails?). IPv4 ARP seems to fall back to broadcast,
> so it sort of starts]
> 

patches welcome :)

> -- 
> Markku Savela
> -
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