2009/200 Solaris Simlinks

[Darren Reed]

James Carlson wrote:
> ...
> The following dladm sub-commands are introduced by this case:
>
>     create-simlink [-t] [-m <media>] <link>
> 	A new simlink device is created on the system with the given
> 	linkname. Media can either be Ethernet (default) or WiFi.
>     modify-simlink [-t] [-p <peer>] <link>
> 	Another simlink is associated as the peer link of an existing
> 	simlink. If the -p option is not specified any existing peer
> 	link associated with the simlink instance is removed.
>     delete-simlink [-t] <link>
> 	Delete simlink instance from the system. If the simlink has
> 	a peer simlink associated with it the command fails.
>     show-simlink   [-pP] [-o <field>,...] [<link>]
> 	Lists the existing simlinks or when linkname is specified displays
> 	the given simlink on the system. Output fields are: LINK, MEDIA,
> 	MACADDRESS and OTHERLINK

The horse may have bolted on this (approved at this morning's PSARC)
but...

(putting my PSARC intern hat on)

The OpenSolaris networking community needs to come up with a better
architecture for dladm that doesn't require a new binary to be
delivered every time new subcommands need to be added for new link
types. Not only does this hinder development of new link types (a
complete new dladm needs to be built and shipped), it is crowding
the man page for dladm(1m). That is a poor architecture and needs
to be improved. Looking at how the userland tools work with
filesystems (/usr/lib/fs, mount_pcfs(1m), etc) is recommended.

The existing architecture of a monolithic dladm command needs
improvement and while it is outside of the scope of this project
to do that, I'd like to suggest that the ARC consider requiring
any future projects that touches dladm to provide a better
architecture for it that addresses the above concerns.

Darren