[Xorp-hackers] Large Number of Interfaces

[Yonghong Ren]

>BTW, can you be a bit more specific about the type of dynamic
>interfaces you want to create/use, This can help defining the
>solution.

By "dynamic", I meant the ability to create/delete interfaces on the fly
(inside of xorpsh for example), as you said. I didn't mean "dynamic
interface" as a different type of interfaces. That is, it's just a plain
interface, which could be for example a plain Ethernet interface or a
logical interface on a physical interface. Sorry for the confusion.

In any case, your explanation is helpful for me to understand what XORP
can or can't do at the moment.

>Adding this functionality is on our TODO list.

Adding this would be very nice. Obviously one could build something that
add/delete interfaces to/from OS via a different path, but I hope that
xorpsh will be the interface that one does everything. This would be a
keen to CLI of any switch/router. Is XORP-sh extensible? In other words,
could I add my own commands and interfaces? The platform I am working
with has capabilities other than routing such as Ethernet switching
(including VLAN), MPLS, etc. It would be nice that I could use xorpsh to
integrate my Ethernet switching and MPLS commands.

I have barely looked into XORP. Hopefully I am not asking too many
uneducated questions. I really ought to study xorp first.

Thanks!

Regards,
Yonghong Ren

-----Original Message-----
From: Pavlin Radoslavov [mailto:pavlin@icir.org] 
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 2:06 PM
To: Yonghong Ren
Cc: Pavlin Radoslavov; atanu@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU; xorp-hackers@xorp.org
Subject: Re: [Xorp-hackers] Large Number of Interfaces 

> >On the other hand, if you want to use, say, a virtual tunnel,
> >currently that tunnel cannot be created by XORP itself; the tunnel
> >must be created externally (by user-level UNIX program, etc).
> 
> As long as I can create and delete interfaces dynamically from XORP,
it
> would be fine. Like in a commercial router, I just want to be able to
> create and delete interfaces without doing this through OS, in other
> words, the interface will be added into or removed from UNIX kernel
> programmatically through XORP.

No, unfortunately currently you cannot use XORP to create the
interfaces inside the kernel, and you have to use the OS.
Adding this functionality is on our TODO list.

> >If you want to use a network interface in XORP, you must explicitly
> >tell XORP about it,
> 
> Is this done statically from a configuration file? Again, I just want
to
> be able to do it on the fly inside XORP.

Currently, after the interface is created in the kernel by the OS,
you still have to tell XORP about it (e.g., in the config file, or
on the fly by xorpsh), so XORP can use it.
In the future, you will have to tell only XORP about it (in config
file or on the fly by xorpsh), and XORP will create it for you.
I believe this is the desired behavior you describe.

BTW, can you be a bit more specific about the type of dynamic
interfaces you want to create/use, This can help defining the
solution.

Regards,
Pavlin