A very belated opinion for PSARC review. Please review by 09/11/2009.
-Seb
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sun
microsystems Systems Architecture Committee
_________________________________________________________________
Subject: Clearview Nemo Unification and Vanity Naming
Submitted by: Cathy Zhou
File: PSARC/2006/499/opinion.ms
Date: July 18th, 2007
Committee: Bill Sommerfeld (opinion written by Sebastien
Roy), Kais Belgaied, James Carlson, Mark
Carlson
Product Approval Committee:
Solaris PAC
solaris-pac-opinion at sun.com
1. Summary
This is one of a series of projects under the PSARC/2005/132
umbrella case, "Clearview: Network Interface Coherence".
This project unifies all Ethernet drivers under the Nemo
framework introduced by PSARC/2004/571, bringing support for
Nemo features such as VLANs and link aggregations to all
Ethernet links. It also introduces the ability to adminis-
tratively assign names to datalinks, and to rename
datalinks.
2. Decision & Precedence Information
The project is approved as specified in references [1], [2],
and [3].
The project may be delivered in a minor release of Solaris
as part of the ON consolidataion.
The project depends on the following other projects and may
not be delivered before them.
PSARC/2003/246
File System Driven Device Naming
PSARC/2004/571
Nemo - a.k.a. GLD v3
PSARC/2006/358
VLAN Observability Enhancement
PSARC/2006/499 Copyright 2007 Sun Microsystems
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PSARC/2006/436
Public DLPI Library
3. Interfaces
The project exports the following interfaces.
_______________________________________________________________________________
| Interfaces Exported |
|____________________________|_______________________|________________________|
|Interface | Classification | Comments |
|____________________________|_______________________|________________________|
|/dev/net | Committed | [1] section 6.2.1 |
|dlpi_walk() | Committed | New libdlpi function. |
| | | [1] section 3.1.6 |
|dladm rename-link | Committed | [1] section 4.3.1 |
|dladm create-vlan | Committed | [1] section 4.1.4 |
| delete-vlan | | |
| show-vlan | | |
|dladm show-phys | Committed | [1] section 4.1.2 |
| delete-phys | | |
|autopush link property | Committed | [1] section 4.3.4 |
| | | |
|dladm show-dev | Obsolete | [1] section 4.1.3 |
|dladm aggregation <key> | Obsolete | Replaced by link name.|
|dladm -d <dev> options | Obsolete | Replaced by |
| | | -l <link> options. |
| | | |
|datalink_id_t | Consolidation Private| [3] |
|Datalink ID Management API | Consolidation Private| [3] |
|libdladm changes | Consolidation Private| [1] |
|DLIOCVLANINFO | Consolidation Private| [1] section 6.1.4 |
|DLPI_DEVONLY | Consolidation Private| [2] section 7 |
|librcm.so | Consolidation Private| Moved from /usr/lib |
| | | to /lib |
| | | |
|MAC_CAPAB_* MAC Capabilities| Project Private | [1] section 7.1.4 |
|mc_open(), mc_close() | Project Private | [1] section 7.1.3 |
|mac_perstream_open() | Project Private | [1] section 7.1 |
|RCM_RESOURCE_LINK_NEW | Project Private | [1] section 6.2.7 |
|/etc/.dlmgmtd_door | Project Private | Door file for dlmgmtd |
|softmac_create() | Project Private | New softmac kernel API|
|softmac_destroy() | | |
|softmac_hold_link() | | |
|softmac_rele_link() | | |
|____________________________|_______________________|________________________|
PSARC/2006/499 Copyright 2007 Sun Microsystems
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The project imports the following interfaces.
_______________________________________________________
| Interfaces Imported |
|____________|_______________________|________________|
|Interface | Classification | Comments |
|____________|_______________________|________________|
|libdlpi | Committed | PSARC/2006/436|
|devname APIs| Consolidation Private| PSARC/2003/246|
|____________|_______________________|________________|
4. Opinion
4.1. Verbose Link Descriptions
While this case introduces the concept of flexible datalink
names that could have meaning in a given context, it does
not solve the greater problem of mapping a given physical
network link to its attachment to the network (e.g. PCI slot
label, or other verbose description of the physical charac-
teristics of the attachment). Datalink names have a strict
syntax (described in the NOTES section of dlpi(7P), and thus
cannot contain arbitrary text.
The committee and project team agreed that the link name is
likely not the right vehicle for verbose descriptions. A
possible and more feasible solution for this would be to add
a link description to dladm separate from the link name.
One member noted that this would be in line with SNMP MIB-
2's ifDescr OID describing an IP interface, which is dis-
tinct from the IP interface name. This solution will not be
part of this project. Section 6 contains advisory informa-
tion for the implementation of this feature.
4.2. Inetd for Door Servers
The committee noted that the dlmgmtd door server being
introduced by this project may be idle when not answering
door calls, which is likely to be the majority of the time,
yet it is always running. It is likely one of many in a
class of daemons that similarly sit idle while waiting for a
door client to call. There is system overhead to having
these processes constantly running yet idle.
This "class" of daemon is similar to the set of network
server daemons that sit idle while waiting for a client to
establish a connection. For network servers, the problem
was solved long ago with the introduction of the inetd(1M)
daemon, which starts services on-demand upon connection
establishment and acts as the delegated restarter for those
services.
PSARC/2006/499 Copyright 2007 Sun Microsystems
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This general approach could be applied to door servers. A
single restarter could be responsible for starting services
upon receiving door calls associated with those services.
Section 6 contains advisory information regarding the imple-
mentation of such a feature.
5. Minority Opinion(s)
None
6. Advisory Information
6.1. dladm Link Descriptions
The project's management should fund a project to add link
descriptions to the dladm(1M) command as discussed in sec-
tion 4.1. The descriptions should be arbitrary text that
can be set by the adminitrator.
6.2. Door Server Delegated Restarter
The PAC is advised to fund a project to investigate and
potentially implement the solution to the problem described
in section 4.2. Specifically, a door server restarter is
needed to reduce the overhead associated with having a mul-
titute of idle door server daemons waiting for door calls
from clients.
7. Appendices
7.1. Appendix A: Technical Changes Required
None
7.2. Appendix B: Technical Changes Advised
None
7.3. Appendix C: Reference Material
Unless stated otherwise, path names are relative to the case
directory PSARC/2006/499.
1. Design Document
File: commitment.materials/uv-design.pdf
2. PSARC 20 Questions
File: commitment.materials/uv_20q.txt
3. Datalink ID Management API Design
File: commitment.materials/link_id_management.pdf
PSARC/2006/499 Copyright 2007 Sun Microsystems
