Change Details

Currently virtio-net is choosing the backend for virtio-net by the prefix of the inteface. This patch allow an addition option "backend" to be chosen explicitly. This allowed greater flexibility for end users to manage bhyve specific resources (such as by naming the tap interfaces to more descriptive names). The option "backend" is optional. When it is not presented, the backend will be derived by the name of the backend interface. For example, the line `-s 3,virtio-net,bsdvm0,backend=tap` will create a virtio-net device for the guest using the tap interface "bsdvm0". The idea behind adding the option "backend" is to preserve the consistency between the current format. Which the next value after virtio-net is set to be an identifier of an instance of a backend. A drawback of this apporach is that; since tap interfaces cannot be created by opening non "tap" prefixed device, if the backend tap interface is not presented and such interface is not prefixed with "tap*", bhyve cannot automatically create it. Since bhyve does not create the interfaces for other backends anyway I think this shouldn't be a big issue.

Currently virtio-net is choosing the backend for virtio-net by the prefix of the inteface. This patch allow an addition option "type" to choose backend type explicitly. This allowed greater flexibility for end users to manage bhyve specific resources (such as by naming the tap interfaces to more descriptive names). The option "type" is optional. When it is not presented, the backend will be derived by the name of the backend interface. For example, the line `-s 3,virtio-net,bsdvm0,type=tap` will create a virtio-net device for the guest using the tap interface "bsdvm0". The idea behind adding the option "type" is to preserve the consistency between the current (legacy) format. Which the next value after virtio-net is set to be an identifier of an instance of a backend. A drawback of this apporach is that; since tap interfaces cannot be created by opening non "tap" prefixed device, if the backend tap interface is not presented and such interface is not prefixed with "tap*", bhyve cannot automatically create it. Since bhyve does not create the interfaces for other backends anyway, it shouldn't be a big issue.

Currently virtio-net is choosing the backend for virtio-net by the prefix of the inteface. This patch allow an addition option "backend"type" to be chosenchoose backend type explicitly. This allowed greater flexibility for end users to manage bhyve specific resources (such as by naming the tap interfaces to more descriptive names). The option "backendtype" is optional. When it is not presented, the backend will be derived by the name of the backend interface. For example, the line `-s 3,virtio-net,bsdvm0,backendtype=tap` will create a virtio-net device for the guest using the tap interface "bsdvm0". The idea behind adding the option "backend""type" is to preserve the consistency between the current (legacy) format. Which the next value after virtio-net is set is set to be an identifier of an instance of a backend. A drawback of this apporach is that; since tap interfaces cannot be created by opening non "tap" prefixed device, if the backend tap interface is not presented and such interface is not prefixed with "tap*", bhyve cannot automatically create it. Since bhyve does not create the interfaces for other backends anyway, I think thisit shouldn't be a big issue.