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ifconfig refactoring for FreeBSD

Posted by Hemos on from the make-it-work-better dept.

Dan writes "Based on Sam Leffer's suggestion, Bruce Simpson has been working on refactoring ifconfig(8). ifconfig is a FreeBSD unix utility used to assign an address to a network interface and/or configure network interface parameters. Bruce says that ifconfig has grown increasingly large and become unwieldy. Part of the effort has been to get a handle on all of the options that are currently supported so he has written a YACC grammar for it. He has uploaded some grammer, created a design document and also generated a PDF file you can view which shows you syntax diagrams for each part of the parse tree."

4 of 125 comments (clear)

  1. How about live /etc/rc.conf changes? by Electrum · · Score: 1, Insightful

    While they are at it, they should add something to parse /etc/rc.conf and reconfigure all interfaces while the system is running. This is one area where Linux has an advantage.

  2. Re:Wondering what YACC is? by __past__ · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Its good to see something like this happening as ifconfig is not only used on FreeBSD but also on most (all?) Linux distros.
    They all have an ifconfig (even windows has, but it's spelled ipconfig), but a different one. The GNU version takes different arguments anyway - like for example none at all, which the FreeBSD version doesn't allow - so this will most likely not affect any Linux user in any way.

    To all those "bsd is dying" trolls, things like this show its not. Without the work of the BSD projects you wouldn't have some of the many tools you use each day.
    If the only sign of life of the BSDs would be a refactoring of one little command-line utility that has been around for decades, I think calling it "dead" would be a good approximation. Fortunatly it isn't. There are enough more interesting things going on the BSD world.

    In other words, this is really one of the most boring stories ever, even considering the "let's duplicate the daemonnews slashbox" policy /. recently adopted.

    --
    Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
  3. Re:Wondering what YACC is? by ctr2sprt · · Score: 3, Insightful
    In other words, this is really one of the most boring stories ever, even considering the "let's duplicate the daemonnews slashbox" policy /. recently adopted.
    I think the issue here is that most Slashdot editors don't know or care about the BSDs, but they need to post some articles. Since they have no way of distinguishing between interesting news and uninteresting, they rely on other sites to assign importance. The effects of this are obvious: not a lot of replies, over half of them trolls, and people getting their BSD news elsewhere.

    You heard it here first: The Slashdot BSD Section is Dying.

  4. Re:Linux's iproute2+tc by jjgm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "ip" is a well-structured command, although the interactions between iproute2 and ifconfig-based interface aliases confuse people (my usual advice is: one or the other).

    "tc" is a complex elephant in considerable need of exposure to someone who both a) cares about qdisc and b) understands OS usability. ip & tc are hardly comparable. The "shapecfg" command is more intuitive, but communicates with a completely separate and underdeveloped kernel subsystem.

    iptables then has another syntax to learn, just to drive home the point that these subsystems are not well integrated. You can't do everything iptables/Netfilter can in ip+tc; please don't claim this. Functionally, it's almost orthogonal. Fortunately, there are patches available that permit Netfilter firewalls to hook into iproute2/tc and vice versa.

    It's not really a happy situation, and designing complex network behaviour for Linux is still an exercise in trial, error, patch integration, and hours of googling.