Hi All, Dose Linux support GARP applications ( GMRP and GVRP) on any of its releases. Please let me know. Is there any source available for the same ( Other then what is provided as part of IEEE 802.1D and 802.1Q standard).
Thanks in Advance Pritam
It all depends on whether you are concerned about performance. Many (most?) network-savvy operating systems implement the "fast-path" of the network code in the OS kernel. Good examples include VMS and Solaris. The fact that Windows does not do so speaks volumes for its design and performance.
"Layering makes a good servant, but a bad master." -- Mike Padlipsky
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Vlan support is more a matter of the network card driuver than the underlying OS. The os doesn't generally see things at layer 2.
Um, OK. I can see how someone might view it that way. IMO, anything that does not ship in the box with the OS is npot part of the OS proper - so IMO most drivers are NOT part of the OS.
Look at it this way - if you buy third party add ons for your car (say for oinstance biiger chrome wheels), do you consider them part of your car? I don't. They are seperate.
Perhaps not under Linux at the moment. But they could - most higher end network card drivers for Windoze certainlt can do VLANS (tagging, but noat GARP)
Interesting. Never knew that. Poor design, IMO. Should not be part of the core - should be more abstracted for the obvious reasons.
Ahem, this is completely wrong.
For one, network card drivers are part of the OS.
Second, network card drivers, at least under Linux, know almost nothing of VLANs - they just know they have to tell the hardware that it should accept frames that are four bytes longer.
All VLAN handling is part of the core network stack of Linux, or, to be more exact, of the ethernet handling core, which is
100% independant of network card drivers, and definitely sees things at layer 2.To answer the original poster: no, as far as I know, the current Linux implementation knows nothing about GARP.
best regards Patrick
We were talking about Linux. Apart from some weird high end graphics card vendors, which supply binary drivers, ALL drivers are part of the Linux kernel, developed in tandem with kernel improvements, and delivered in one piece (maybe built modular, or a recompile away, but delivered with the rest of the sources).
Maybe they have to do it, because Windows (the Windows network stack and/or driver API and/or whatever) doesn't know about VLANs, itself?
Handling VLANs (tagged frames) is a pure logical software function, just like ethertype and MAC address handling / checking. Putting it at the driver layer is bad design, in my opinion, because it results in code duplication in each and every driver, with a very good chance of inconsistent operation with hardware/drivers from different vendors.
A hardware driver is for shoving bits from and to cards. Interpreting the bits is best left to suitable shared components of the OS.
Maybe you should look at how things are layered in Linux, before you jump to such conclusions. The things I've seen in the Linux networking code, are usually abstracted quite well. Where they aren't, and it starts to show, things are changed after some time.
best regards Patrick
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