On 18 May 2017 at 09:16, Richard W.M. Jones <rjo...@redhat.com> wrote: > On Tue, May 16, 2017 at 11:29:42PM +0100, James Hogarth wrote: >> Hi, >> >> It was pointed out on IRC to me tonight that there are actually a >> reasonable number of packages that still depend on net-tools[0]. > > What's wrong with net-tools? I always install it on my machines to > get the familiar BSD-style tools. Also the replacements like "ip" are > not really improvements. > > Rich. > >
I don't want to get into an exhaustive detailing of the issues on this list, as it doesn't seem the right place for it and it is a diversion of the point of the thread... But a few things in brief: ----------------------------------------------------------- The tools in the net-tools package uses the old IOCTL interfaces with the kernel, which leaves them very limited in what they can do. Way back in 2.2 the netlink socket api was added as a more flexible method of interacting than ioctl, to give an idea of how far back this now goes. You can dive into the history of iproute2 a bit yourself here: https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/networking/iproute2 http://linux-ip.net/html/tools-iproute2-remarks.html Now for some examples... Since ifconfig uses the limited ioctl interface it is not capable of displaying secondary IP addresses on an interface, such as VIPs put in place by keepalived or pacemaker. https://www.hogarthuk.com/?q=node/6 The route command only works on the default main table and has no concept of the full routing decisions the kernel makes (compare route print to ip route li table all for example) and there's no ability to check ip rules through net-tools. IPv6 is becoming far more important but there's almost no ability to handle that through net-tools (try to find an equivalent for ip -6 neigh sh) The people working on the kernel network stack developed iproute2 alongside the network stack to properly support and interface to it. ------------------------------------------------------------ That's just a few bits, and as I've said I'd rather not get diverted from the actual scope and goal. Now I have heard the argument made "why not port net-tools to netlink so the old stuff is still valid?" but someone needs to do that work, not just ask the question. Open Source is a meritocracy after all ;) The people with the best knowledge to do that already wrote a set of userspace tools against netlink ... that's iproute2 Now I know familiarity can be nice but do be aware there's not even compatibilty (in arguments or output) between the BSD ifconfig and the linux net-tools ifconfig and they are not actually related in code at all. I urge you to break your muscle memory - especially as IPv6 becomes more prevalent - and I urge everyone not to veer off the topic proposed any further than we have done already :) _______________________________________________ devel mailing list -- devel@lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to devel-le...@lists.fedoraproject.org
