freebsd stable - Jun 2009 - Do you use a value other than AUTO for network_interfaces?

Up till Sunday in 8-current, and for a long time in general
network.subr (part of the rc.d system) has emitted a warning that
values of network_interfaces other than AUTO are deprecated. I removed
that warning in HEAD Sunday, and there is no a discussion about
whether or not it should be put back, and whether or not there is any
need for the user to specify the list of network interfaces at all.

If you use a value of network_interfaces other than AUTO please speak
up so that we can make an intelligent decision about this issue.


Thanks,

Doug

On 2 Jun 2009, at 21:20, Doug Barton wrote:
> Up till Sunday in 8-current, and for a long time in general
> network.subr (part of the rc.d system) has emitted a warning that
> values of network_interfaces other than AUTO are deprecated. I removed
> that warning in HEAD Sunday, and there is no a discussion about
> whether or not it should be put back, and whether or not there is any
> need for the user to specify the list of network interfaces at all.
Well, I do.

I only want to configure only the interfaces that are connected and  
that I know about. especially in combination with IPv6 there is a nit  
that you'll get autoconfiguration for all interfaces unless they are  
all explicitly configured.

e.g. bge0 connected, bge1 not, v6 autoconf on the lan. if I don't do a  
ipv6_ifconfig_bge1="down" and nail network_interfaces to bge0 bge1 lo0
only I'll get autoconfiguration of v6 where I don't want it to be.


Being a bit of my own devils advocate here, network_interfaces="AUTO"
is already true for ipv6. with network_interfaces="bge0 lo0"  
network.subr nevertheless sees bge1, and no configuration and takes  
the responsibility of starting ipv6 autoconfiguration for it.
> If you use a value of network_interfaces other than AUTO please speak
> up so that we can make an intelligent decision about this issue.
you want to have a system where one still can control which interfaces  
are explicitly configured or skipped, with no side effects of default  
actions
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Doug
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Regards,
	Ruben

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 12:20:34PM -0700, Doug Barton
wrote:
> Up till Sunday in 8-current, and for a long time in general
> network.subr (part of the rc.d system) has emitted a warning that
> values of network_interfaces other than AUTO are deprecated. I
> removed that warning in HEAD Sunday, and there is no a discussion
> about whether or not it should be put back, and whether or not there
> is any need for the user to specify the list of network interfaces
> at all.
> 
> If you use a value of network_interfaces other than AUTO please
> speak up so that we can make an intelligent decision about this
> issue.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Doug
I'll have to preface this by disclosing that I have not been running
-current, nor following any changes to the RC system.

In 7.1, if you compile a custom kernel and comment out an interface
(such that it is compiled as a module), one way to ensure that the
module is loaded is to explicitly list it in network_interfaces.  If
-current works the same way, then users will be required to modify
/boot/loader.conf in order to load the module.  Could there could be
possible side-effects to this change, since the loading of the module
happens at a different time?

At best, users doing things the 'network_interfaces' way may be in for
a surprise when the update (remotely), and this may be worthy of a
note in UPDATING.

If this has changed in 7.2 or -current, then I apologize for the
noise!

Erik

Doug Barton wrote:
> If you use a value of network_interfaces other than AUTO please speak
> up so that we can make an intelligent decision about this issue.
Maybe I am wrong, setting network_interfaces is the way I found I had to 
use to be able to rename cloned interfaces.

eg:

network_interfaces="lo0 em0 dmz"
ifconfig_em0="up"
cloned_interfaces="vlan0"

ifconfig_vlan0_name="dmz"
ifconfig_dmz="192.168.34.129/24 vlan 2 vlandev em0"

I seem to remember I had to put that 'dmz' in network_interfaces, to 
make everything happy at boot. I can do more tests if needed.

Ciao,
Angelo.