> On 28 Oct 2021, at 15:35, Jason McIntyre <j...@kerhand.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 01:27:17PM +1000, David Gwynne wrote:
>>
>>> that strategy does rely on individual driver docs saying upfront that
>>> they can be created though, even if using create is not common. i wonder if
>>> ifconfig already knows what it can create, and could maybe be more
>>> helpful if "create" without an ifname gave a hint.
>>
>> dlg@rpi3b trees$ ifconfig -C
>> aggr bpe bridge carp egre enc eoip etherip gif gre lo mgre mpe mpip mpw
>> nvgre pair pflog pflow pfsync ppp pppoe svlan switch tap tpmr trunk tun veb
>> vether vlan vport vxlan wg
>>
>> the "interface can be created paragraph" is in most of the manpages for
>> these drivers, except for pair, pfsync, pppoe, and vether (and
>> veb/vport). some of them could be improved, eg, bpe and switch.
>>
>
> oops, missed that flag!
maybe the doco for "create" in ifconfig.8 should refer back to it too.
> i had thought maybe if there was such an option, we wouldn;t need the
> "if can be created" blurb in every page. but i suppose we do need to say
> it somewhere.
the driver manpages are in a weird place because they're supposed to be for
programmers, and the ifconfig manpage is for "operators". however, the driver
pages have the "theory of operation" for their interfaces. so you have the high
level theory in the driver manpage, the way 99% of use actually interact with
interfaces in ifconfig.8, and then you go back to the driver doco for the low
level programming detail. it's not the best sandwich.
> another issue is that the text is inconsistent across pages.
yeah, but that can be fixed easily.
dlg
