From: jamal Subject: Re: Network drivers that don't suspend on interface down Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2006 08:14:29 -0500 Message-ID: <1166706869.3749.29.camel@localhost> References: <20061220042648.GA19814@srcf.ucam.org> <20061220144906.7863bcd3@dxpl.pdx.osdl.net> <20061221011209.GA32625@srcf.ucam.org> <200612202105.31093.flamingice@sourmilk.net> <20061221021832.GA723@srcf.ucam.org> <1166670848.23168.21.camel@localhost.localdomain> Reply-To: hadi@cyberus.ca Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: stefan@loplof.de, Matthew Garrett , Michael Wu , Stephen Hemminger , Arjan van de Ven , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org Return-path: To: Dan Williams In-Reply-To: <1166670848.23168.21.camel@localhost.localdomain> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On Wed, 2006-20-12 at 22:14 -0500, Dan Williams wrote: ... .... > Simple == good. Down == down. Lets just agree on that and save > ourselves a lot of pain. netdevices have well defined operational and administrative state machines. And very well defined relationship between operational and administrative status. IOW, care should be invoked not to reinvent. Power management to me seems like an operational state. A link could only transition to operational or down depending on whether it is "powered" up or down. To be complete, since a netdevice is a generic construct, nota bene: - a link could be a wireless association or ethernet cable or a PPP session or a ATM PVC, or an infrared channel etc. - events that result in operational link transitions could be anything from powering up an ethernet phy with an active cable plugged to an 802.1x auth on a wireless association to a on-demand ppp link seeing an outgoing packet. IMO, for this discussion to be meaningful, it would be useful to read Documentation/networking/operstates.txt And if you are keen you can then read RFC 2863... cheers, jamal