On Wed, 2009-03-25 at 14:55 -0400, Sowmini.Varadhan at Sun.COM wrote:
> On (03/25/09 09:05), Darren Reed wrote:
> > Which is good... and if I refer back to the CLI you presented earlier:
> >
> > # ipadm {create,modify}-interface [-t] [-f {inet, inet6}] \
> > [-if6_intf_id=<IPv6 Interface ID>] \
> > [-O <interface sub-options>] <interface>
> >
> > Then the concept you're pushing of an interface being a "thing"
> > that can have multiple address families requires that the "-f"
> > option be dropped completely. Another alternative might be to
> > make the family a mandatory option before "-t", without the "-f".
>
> If you drop the -f completely, how is the ipadm user going to mandate
> that (s)he will have "no ipv6 interfaces", or "no ipv4 interfaces"?
Don't add any IPv6 addresses, or don't add any IPv4 addresses.
> In other words, yes, we can have all of the following:
> - make ipadm present the (illusory, today) BSD-like impression that there
> is just one interface, that can be used flexibly for ipv4 and ipv6.
> - under the covers, we can continue having the ipv4/ipv6 ill model, where
> both are created by "ipadm create-interface <foo>".
> - ifconfig will still report ipv4 and ipv6 as separate ills
> But what if the adminstrator really does not want to create an
> ipv4 capable interface, and only wants the ipv6 capability? If we want
> to provide this feature (as an option) thorugh ipadm, we'd need the
> -f flag.
If there are no addresses, then there is no point in "plumbing" the
associated interface under the hood. The administrator's intent is
implicit in the addresses that are configured over the interface.
-Seb
