Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1161133AbWASBOW (ORCPT ); Wed, 18 Jan 2006 20:14:22 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1161134AbWASBOW (ORCPT ); Wed, 18 Jan 2006 20:14:22 -0500 Received: from mx.pathscale.com ([64.160.42.68]:50314 "EHLO mx.pathscale.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1161133AbWASBOW (ORCPT ); Wed, 18 Jan 2006 20:14:22 -0500 Subject: Re: RFC: ipath ioctls and their replacements From: "Bryan O'Sullivan" To: "David S. Miller" Cc: akpm@osdl.org, rdreier@cisco.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, greg@kroah.com, openib-general@openib.org In-Reply-To: <20060118.164839.74431051.davem@davemloft.net> References: <1137631411.4757.218.camel@serpentine.pathscale.com> <20060118.164839.74431051.davem@davemloft.net> Content-Type: text/plain Organization: PathScale, Inc. Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 17:14:16 -0800 Message-Id: <1137633256.4757.225.camel@serpentine.pathscale.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.2.3 (2.2.3-2.fc4) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 734 Lines: 18 On Wed, 2006-01-18 at 16:48 -0800, David S. Miller wrote: > You can use an interface such a netlink for device configuration. > It can do better type checking, can be used by generic tools, and > some day soon will be transferable over the wire so that one can > perform remote configuration changes. That looks doable, but to my eyes, the netlink interface looks both more cumbersome and less reliable than ioctl. At least it apparently lets us do arbitrarily peculiar things :-)