David Miller wrote:
quoted text
> From: Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@openvz.org>
> Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:16:45 +0300
> 
>> AFAIS the net.ipv4.conf. <dev>, all and default sysctls should 
>> work like this when changed (besides changing the value itself):
>>
>> <dev>   : optionally do smth else
>> all     : walk devices
>> default : walk devices
>>
>> The proc handler for net.ipv4.conf.all works like this:
>>
>> <dev>   : flush rt cache
>> all     : walk devices and flush rt cache
>> default : nothing
>>
>> while the sysctl handler works like this:
>>
>> <dev>   : nothing
>> all     : nothing
>> default : walk devices but don't flush the cache
>>
>> All this looks strange. Am I right that regardless of whatever
>> handler (proc or syscall) is called the behavior should be:
>>
>> <dev>   : flush rt cache
>> all     : walk the devices and flush the cache
>> default : walk the devices and flush the cache
>>
>> ?
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@openvz.org>
> 
> Because, basically, nobody (and I really do mean nobody)
> uses the sysctl() method to change these things, what
> people expect is basically going to be the procfs
> access behavior.

OK. Thank you for clarification :)

quoted text
> And I agree with it.
> 
> The 'default' influences future settings, it should not modify
> existing devices.  That's the job of 'all'.

I thought the same, and I saw that this is true for ipv6, but
ipv4 works differently :( -- changing default for some sysctls
will cause some devices to be changed as well.

I mean - devinet_copy_dflt_conf() copies the changed bit on 
those devices, that have not this but marked in the "state" field.
It is called for such entries as "accept_redirects", "shared_media" 
and many others. But not for "forwarding" one. That's what seemed
strange to me. Sorry, that I didn't express the idea more cleanly.

So what's the right behavior -- to propagate the default for all the 
ctls on all the devices (according to their "state"), not to propagate 
for all the ctls, or to keep things as they are now?

quoted text
> Otherwise why have 'all' and 'default' as two different knobs
> if they do exactly the same thing?  That's pointless.
> 
> I've therefore dropped this patch.
> 

Thanks,
Pavel
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe netdev" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html