On 03/26/09 13:06, James Carlson wrote: > Girish Moodalbail writes: > >> On 03/25/09 12:30, James Carlson wrote: >> >>> I assume that if someone puts a regular link into promiscuous mode, >>> then all of the regular VNICs (including those inside a zone) are in >>> promiscuous mode. >>> >> No, they would not be in promiscuous mode. The VNIC's would be in >> promiscuous mode only if a DLPI application enables it using >> dlpi_promiscon() with DL_PROMISC_PHYS flag. So, we do not register >> VNIC's promiscuous call back function if the NIC is put in promiscuous mode. >> > > I don't think I understand the usage model entirely, then. > > Is the idea of showing "promiscuous mode" intended to allow the > administrator to know whether there's someone watching? If so, then > I'd expect the state to show whether there's any promiscuous client > anywhere in the system that can snoop in on that link's traffic. > > If it's not for that purpose, then how does the administrator use this > new flag? What does it tell him, and what could he do with that > information? >
The flag specifies if the data link is in promiscuous mode or not. The promiscuity of the data link might have been set by directly snooping the data link or by snooping the MAC clients (VNIC's or VLAN's) defined on top of that data link or by some other DLPI application. The fact that the link itself is in promiscuous mode should indicate that 'there's someone watching', right? Further if the underlying NIC is in promiscuous mode and for the MAC clients on that NIC the flag is not set, then it would mean that there is a listener (like snoop or some other DLPI application) which enabled promiscuity. >>> If a VNIC is in promiscuous mode, is the underlying link marked that >>> way as well even though no clients of the underlying link are using it >>> that way? >>> >> Yes, the underlying link will be marked promiscuous because without >> making the underlying NIC promiscuous the VNIC's would not get all the >> packets. >> > > True ... but I'm asking about the state of the visible flag, not the > internal implementation details. > > If this is supposed to just show whether there's a promiscuous > listener on a given link, then why would the underlying NIC show this > flag set when there *isn't* such a listener on that link? In the above case 'promiscuous flag' for both VNIC and underlying NIC will be set indicating they are in 'promiscuous' mode. thanks ~Girish -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/brussels-dev/attachments/20090326/18bb1034/attachment.html>
