[Ns-developers] Learning Bridge, NetDevice API changes

[Mathieu Lacage]

On Sat, 2008-07-05 at 13:13 +0100, Gustavo Carneiro wrote:

>         I would expect to be able to set the device promiscuous bit on
>         globally
>         as root on linux. i.e., "ifconfig ethx promisc" ? So, if we do
>         the same
>         thing, we probably should be fine.
> 
> If we're going down linux road, at least we should add a packet type
> parameter to make it easy for protocol handlers to ignore certain
> packets:
> 
> unsigned char pkt_type;
>         
>         Packet classification used in delivering it. The driver is
>         responsible for setting it to PACKET_HOST (this packet is for
>         me), PACKET_BROADCAST, PACKET_MULTICAST, or PACKET_OTHERHOST
>         (no, this packet is not for me). Ethernet drivers don't modify
>         pkt_type explicitly because eth_type_trans does it for them.
>         
> (from http://www.xml.com/ldd/chapter/book/ch14.html)

What is the use-case for that ? I don't have anything against this idea
but, I really don't see what problem this feature will solve. 

Mathieu