ip(8) in base

[Andreas Nilsson]

On Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 11:11 AM Alexander V. Chernikov <melifaro at ipfw.ru>
wrote:

> I want to introduce ip(8) or something similar in base.
> Basically, I need some userland tool to explicitly operates on nexthops,
> nexthop groups and fib lookup algorithms.
>
> The existing tools are not well suited for the job: route(8) may be a
> candidate, but (a) it would either add another bunch of  options or
> drastically change the tool by introducing [route nhop add], [route nhgroup
> add] and (b) listing is traditionally done by netstat(8).
>
> I feel like there is a need of some cli tool that provides the ability to
> easily extend it by having separate namespaces for each sub-command (hello,
> ifconfig).
>
> Naming is hard. I can, for example, use "rt" as a name to address my use
> cases.
> However, given the kernel interfaces for managing nexthops/nexhop groups
> are the same as with routes/arp/ndp, why not spending some additional time
> and support operating on routes and neighbors and name it ip?
>
> Though, that arises multiple questions.
> Are we comfortable with ip(8) as a name in general?
> If we are, what’s our take on having the compatible interface with Linux
> ip(8)?
>
> Any comments/feedback is welcome :-)
>
>
> Appendix
> List of commands I need implemented
>
> cmd [-46m] nhop create [gw XX] [iface YYY] [mtu YYY] [reject] [proxyfib Y]
> [fib X][ipv4] [ipv6]
> cmd [-46m] nhop delete nhop_id
> cmd -46m nhop list
> cmd -j nhop list # json
>
> cmd -46m nhgroup create nhops 1,2,3,4,5,6 [fib X]
> cmd -46 nhgroup create nhops 1=100,2=100,3=200,4=100 [proxyfib Y][fib X]
> cmd -46 nhroup list
> cmd -46 nhgroup delete nhgroup_id
>
> cmd -46 fib algo list
> cmd -46 fib algo set algo dpdk_lpm6 fib 0
> cmd -46 fib algo set algo auto fib 0
>
>
> /Alexander
>
>
Seems like a good cli util to have. I personally don't like the name ip, to
generic, and conflict with ip in linux. I think a somewhat more appropriate
name would be ipctl.

One might also look to naming and perhaps functionality like opensolaris
had, with dladm, ipadm and so on.

Best regards
Andreas