On 03/08/2013 08:28 PM, Marek Lindner wrote:
> On Saturday, March 09, 2013 01:38:56 Linus Lüssing wrote:
>> From: Matthias Schiffer <mschiffer@universe-factory.net>
>>
>> In heterogenous networks, setting the number of broadcasts to differing
>> values on different interfaces can be beneficial.
>>
>> E.g., on wireless interfaces with high packet loss a higher number of
>> broadcasts may be necessary, whereas on low-bandwidth interfaces with
>> relatively high reliablily (such as VPN links over slow internet lines)
>> sending only a single packet makes more sense to preserve bandwidth.
> 
> In general, I like the idea but the approach isn't the best. Can't we automate 
> these settings instead of adding hundreds of little knobs nobody will 
> understand ? Why not detecting wifi interfaces as such and configure the 
> broadcast value accordingly ? The same goes for ethernet / vpns ?

While is makes sense to find some sensible defaults for such values, in
my opinion everything should be as configurable as possible. I don't
think it would be a problem to have some dozens knobs more if a normal
user almost never has to touch them. On the other hand, for testing,
debugging and development purposes, it can save a lot of time not having
to recompile the kernel for such changes all the time.

Also, for VPN connections, automatic detection of the link type isn't
generally possible, as we'd have to know which medium the VPN is going
over...

Regards,
Matthias

> 
> Cheers,
> Marek
>