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

[Bastian Bittorf]

* Rob Landley <rob at landley.net> [05.04.2013 09:00]:
> >this is wrong:
> >lo:0 is no interface, so why does it show an extra interface?
> 
> I note that technically "lo" isn't an ethernet interface in the first
> place, so you could make the same argument there...

ethernet or SLIP or lo doesnt matter. lo:0 belongs to lo and
is not an separate interface. but your are right, this is only
a small issue...

> 
> >> >- more than one routing table ("policy routing")
> >>
> >> Never tried, but I've done some fun stuff with iptables and some
> >
> >so, because you never tried - it's not needed? 8-)
> 
> No, I'm saying I'm scratching my own itch and you complaining about
> ifconfig does not trump other people submitting code to me and
> complaining in email that they would be "very confused" if it was
> removed because it's part of their patched version of toybox that
> they're already using in a product.

i doubt somebody is using toybox in production today. thats the reason
that i switched in: it's not too late for making it right. (when
ifconfig is fully included, than we need to maintain both:
ifconfig/arp/netstat/route and 'ip')

> won't use code from net-tools. Your complaints about horrible
> infrastructure are mind-bogglingly irrelevant, it's gonna be a fresh
> implementation. (At least when I get done with it...)

thats an important point and i agree.
but if you/somebody creates something fresh, why warm-up old soup?

> >the idea behind it is:
> >dont encourage people to use such old, incomplete, inconsistent tools.
> 
> 1) cat's older
> 2) this should (eventually) be a fresh implementation
> 3) we can add stuff until it's not incomplete
> 4) you've never explained inconsistent, just asserted it. (No, I'm
> not interested in hearing it at the moment. I'm experiencing topic
> exhaustion.)

i did. it's inconsistent because you have different commands with
different sytax / switches which are doing the same thing:
manipulating network - nobody would implement two different
cat-implementations for 'files' and 'devices'. it's the same, because
it's the same kernel-interface.

> >so why not doing it right? is there any distro
> >not shipping 'ip' (iproutw2)?
> 
> People made this argument for udev. I wrote mdev. This is the same
> argument people are making right now for "systemd". I'm not doing
> that one.

true and valid argument.

> 
> >> >- you can rename interfaces
> >>
> >> man nameif
> >>
> >> >- multicast working
> >>
> >> I'm fairly certain multicast was around in the 90's. I remember
> >> people bemoaning its failure even then. (How is the mbone doing?
> >> Netflix streaming making extensive use of that, then? Skype?
> >> Youtube?)
> >
> >multicast makes more sense in the ipv6 world
> 
> No it doesn't. I was working for a set top box manufacturer in 2001,

a lot of things have changed in IPv6 since then. i understand you
arguments about this (and read the links). lets see in 5 years if
somebody is using it, or if it silently dies...hard to say.

> (I care more about quality of the code than rapidly increasing the
> feature set. All these commands already exist elsewhere, toybox needs

thats the most important point and also the thing why i'am in.

i think from architecture view, its cleaner to implement 'ip' than
fighting with all the syntax and output-issues of ifconfig.

so the question again: is ifconfig in androids-toolbox a dependency
for any other program in android?

bye, bastian

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