[Xorp-hackers] VLANs

Kristian Larsson kristian at spritelink.se
Wed May 10 14:19:00 PDT 2006


On Wed, May 10, 2006 at 11:11:10AM -0700, Robert Bays wrote:
> Sent this out yesterday from the wrong mail account...
> 
> Robert Bays wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > Kristian Larsson wrote:
> >>>         %create:  program "vconfig add
> >>>         $(ethernet.@) 
> >>> $(@)";                                                                                                                                                    
> >>
> >> This is certainly not an elegant solution.
> >> However there is no problem doing this from within
> >> the fea. I've provided a very simple code example
> >> of adding vlans on a Linux system, it's available
> >> at
> >> http://www.xorp.org/bugzilla/attachment.cgi?id=79&action=view
> > 
> > While it may not be elegant, it seems to work.  And I would argue is a 
> > more pure implementation than creating vlan devices in the fea (from a 
> > XORP point of view anyway).
I tend not to agree. It's not that many extra
lines of code. Most things are done by the actual
operating system anyway, you just call a few
controls.
I suspect it's a bit easier handling error cases
when doing it via ioctl(or the alike) instead of 
calling ifconfig.
> > To date, XORP doesn't create system 
> > interfaces.  It relies on the operating system to provide them. Enabling 
> > the fea to know how to create and configure the wide range of interfaces 
> > is probably beyond the scope of the fea, IMHO.  vlans are maybe a 
> > borderline example, but also consider a Sangoma or Digium T1/E1 
> > interface.  As long as XORP provides a convenient method for using 
> > existing system tools to create the interface and set layer 2 parameters 
> > before any XRLs are processed, you can add support for many interface 
> > types relatively easily.  And that is probably the real goal.  XORP need 
> > only know about the layer 3 characteristics of the device in order to 
> > utilize it.
No.... If we just stick to the layer 3
characteristics no one will use XORP. I don't want
to use ifconfig to setup interfaces and then xorp
to do the routing. I want a more or less complete
routing system with all there is to it.
XORP must be able to handle more than just
routing.

   Kristian.




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