Re: Net.Manager

[Anil Madhavapeddy <anil@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 22 Mar 2013, at 15:43, Vincent Bernardoff <vb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>> In this case you won't be able to integrate an existing network
>> interface to the Mirage Network stack. You need at least to consider raw
>> ethernet sockets for linux, bpf for MacOSX and find some nice
>> abstraction to expose this through the Manager(?) API.
> 
> Ok, just read about raw ethernet sockets. I did not know that it was 
> possible, it is interesting. The possibility I was thinking about was to 
> "integrate an existing network interface" in creating a tap interface and 
> bridge it with the real network interface. This way you probably can read 
> inbound/outbound ethernet frames. Would it be possible to do that on MacOSX ?


I think we should separate out the concern of attaching an existing network 
interface from just standard bridging.  On the Mac, there's no built-in support 
for bridging, which makes it important to attach an existing interface.

However, VirtualBox *does* have a kernel bridging module on MacOS X, so could 
we perhaps use that somehow?

However, the interface that involves opening an fd (through whatever means, be 
it tuntap or bpf) and passing it through to the Mirage application via sendfd 
seems to be the most robust solution in terms of interface design.  We could 
even write a manual MacOS bridge to send traffic back-and-forth from an 
interface if we're really stuck later.

-anil