* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [2006-04-05 10:06:34] > If I wanted to write a new virtual NIC for Solaris, what approach > would I take?
GLDv2 is the recommended approach. If for some reason GLDv2 doesn't fit with what you want to do, you should write a DLPI driver. If neither GLDv2 nor DLPI fit with what you want to do then Solaris probably doesn't have supported stable interfaces to help you. > If I want to make a new NIC to experiment with a protocol like CARP > or VRRP, where would I go for how to start on such a project? Do we > have sufficient interfaces to support this? Is there something specific about CARP or VRRP that would require special features of a NIC driver? > Do I have to write a complete NIC driver, like a bge, even though > gld is available, or can we make something else, better? When originally created, bge was a GLDv2 driver, hence I'm confused by "like a bge, even though gld is available". Admittedly, bge is now a Nemo driver and I agree that the Nemo interfaces should become stable, but Sun takes the stability of interfaces very seriously, which makes anyone with some doubt about the long-term validity of an interface very leery of declaring it Stable. Nemo is still undergoing rapid and significant change - today may just not be the right time to put a line in the sand. > Ideally I'd expect the IPMP code to be a model of how to do this. IPMP is, in reality, a strange beast. Why you'd expect it to set any kind of precedent for how to write NIC drivers is something of a mystery to me, as IPMP operates almost entirely at layer 3. Hiding some of the implementation details of IPMP, as the Clearview project will do, seems like a good thing and isn't really related to the stability level of NIC driver interfaces. dme. -- David Edmondson, Solaris Engineering, Sun Microsystems. _______________________________________________ networking-discuss mailing list [email protected]
