Re: [PATCH v2] Re: WAN: new PPP code for generic HDLC

From: James Chapman
Date: Mon Apr 21 2008 - 16:33:33 EST


Krzysztof Halasa wrote:
David Miller <davem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

I'll fix it properly because I know you won't do the work.

Great to read that.

Just few friendly after all notes so that you don't waste your time
learning that yourself:
- my patch didn't give us a third PPP implementation, we already have
three: generic PPP, syncppp and PPP for ISDN :-)
- of those, both generic PPP and (I think) ISDN PPP are in a good
shape
- generic PPP is specialized for dial-up async devices and has the
required features (in kernel and in userspace pppd) - auth,
multi-line, compression etc. It's a "lets give /dev/ttyS* a network
device" implementation.

Generic ppp isn't specialized at all, and it isn't limited to async serial devices. PPPoE, PPPoATM and L2TP use it.

- ISDN PPP does for ISDN cards basically the same as generic PPP does
for terminals. They are completely different from syncppp as the
needs are completely different. Fixed-line PPP must be small and
fast, and self-contained.

<snip>

That's why I came to an idea that leaving syncppp and the old drivers
in their current bit-rotting state which nobody can really fix, and
using another (fourth, and third when syncppp eventually dies) PPP
implementation is the only way out of this situation.

Can you elaborate on why the code that uses syncppp can't use the generic ppp code together with a userspace ppp control protocol implementation like pppd?


--
James Chapman
Katalix Systems Ltd
http://www.katalix.com
Catalysts for your Embedded Linux software development

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