[Toybox] complaining about 'ifconfig' - better use 'ip'

[Bastian Bittorf]

* Isaac Dunham <idunham at lavabit.com> [04.04.2013 17:51]:
> > iwlist is also dead since a long time, the successor is 'iw'
> > which shares/imitates to 'ip' syntax
> 
> Oh?

http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Documentation/iw

"The old tool iwconfing, which uses Wireless Extensions interface, is
deprecated and it's strongly recommended to switch to iw and nl80211"

> > there is not plugin-arch, just one command which simply
> > manipulates the kernels netlink-interface.
> 
> Yuck.  One monolith that does everything but no plugin architecture...

yes, because all the networking stuff is done via netlink anyway.
it makes from the architecture view no sense to split it.

> > i will. there is no work done anymore on ifconfig, even the manpage
> > says to switch.
> 
> Well, if toybox implements ifconfig, there will be work done on ifconfig.
> I won't be switching.  And Rob won't be.  And Android won't be.

you will: sooner or later 8-) even android must switch to make use
of the new kernel infrastructure, e.g. if you have multiple network
devices with uplink you need more than one routing-table for the
fallback. for this case, they need 'ip' or they must implement something
which speaks with the kernel.

> In other words, if you're switching, who cares?  If you want an ip command, please either write it yourself or pay for it to happen. It's not on Rob's agenda at present, and this argument over whether to implement it or ifconfig is making no headway and impeding real progress.
> 

seems you are right.


> > > Is there a standard on this? I'm happy to implement a standard...
> > 
> > there is no standard, just reallive (like the mount or init-command):
> 
> mount and init have specs in LSB--though it's not enough.

i poked on POSIX, which does not define it.

http://www.linuxbase.org/navigator/browse/command.php
where is 'init' defined?

> Landley's point is that toybox aims to be standards-conformant, not to copy every command in every detail. And if you can point to a standard (POSIX, LSB, or similar, not "consensus among a subset of distros" which would also mandate avahi for zeroconf and pulse for audio) that says "use ip", then that will mandate implementing ip.
>

the other question is: which distro has not 'iproute2' and when is the
point they are all switching. in 2 years? in 5 years? lets see.

> > every developer in the network world has realized, that doing the
> > 'ifconfg/route/arp/netstat'-thingy was a dead-end-street.
> 
> As far as I can tell, that problem is only with the net-tools implementation of ifconfig. BSD still uses ifconfig, and so does Android.

yes, correct.

thanks for the discussion to all - bye, bastian


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