I've recently been looking at how to improve the module support of
Ethertap devices. I've noticed that one can have multiple devices
however in doing so one must load one module per device. I can patch
the code to allow for multiple devices per module, but in doing so the
number of devices must be specified when the module is loaded.
Ideally I would like to be able to issue commands similar to the
following:
insmod ethertap unit=0 # create device tap0
insmod ethertap unit=1 # create device tap1
My intended purpose is to load the ethertap module once and call
init_module twice. Init module would then create an Ethertap device
corresponding to the unit parameter. I don't think this would be
terribly hard to implement (or alternatively add a "reinit_module"
function). Are there any philosophical reasons against doing this?
(Otherwise I might be tempted to try.)
I've also noticed that "Netlink Device Emulation" is to be removed
from the kernel and that Ethertap depends on it. Is anyone working on
modifying Ethertap and or the netlink code in anticipation of this?
Regards,
Michal Ostrowski
mostrows@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca