about ifconfig

[Marcus Brinkmann]

Hi,

I checked in ifconfig.  The status is as follows:

1. The output routine is in good shape.  You can specify some formats, all of
them are defined in the pattern substitution syntax that allows you to
define new output formats.  I discussed this here earlier.  See options.c
for some default formats.  (New patterns can be defined globally and
per-system.  On the TODO list is the ability to pre-evaluate a pattern and
check if it has any output, this is necessery to make ${join} do something
like 1,2,4 rather than 1,2,,4 if the third pattern expands to nothing).

2. The change interface routines works as far as they are there. Flag
modification is lacking, for example.

3. The system compatibility code is only tested for Linux (oh, and Solaris I
think). On all systems, not all systems default ifconfig options are supported,
but something like

ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.224 broadcast 192.168.0.32

will work everywhere. More work can be done here.

4. The system.c/system.h stuff is very lame. We need some autoconf magic
here. Much more can be autoconfised, probably.

5. We will need to think about protocol families. ifconfig is the first
utility in the set that could be useful for many protocol families. At least
IPv6 we will have to address at some time. I don't know the issues at all.

6. I will need to transfer the copyright. That's on my TODO list since quite
some time, so it will happen soon. (Sorry for being late, it's one of those
things that just get delayed from week to week).

7. I hope POSIX will come up with fine standards for all the hacks in
system/* :)

Thanks,
Marcus

-- 
`Rhubarb is no Egyptian god.' Debian http://www.debian.org address@hidden
Marcus Brinkmann              GNU    http://www.gnu.org    address@hidden
address@hidden
http://www.marcus-brinkmann.de