From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Stephen Hemminger <stephen@networkplumber.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next 2/3] tuntap: allow overriding ethtool driver
 info
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 14:32:06 -0700
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Cc: Helmut Grohne <h.grohne@cygnusnetworks.de>,
	David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>, <netdev@vger.kernel.org>
To: Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@solarflare.com>
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On Thu, 25 Jul 2013 22:19:17 +0100
Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@solarflare.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 2013-07-24 at 17:16 -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> > On Thu, 25 Jul 2013 00:48:07 +0100
> > Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@solarflare.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > On Wed, 2013-07-24 at 16:13 -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> > > > This patch adds new ioctl to allow setting the ethtool information
> > > > returned by the TUN device. This is useful when using tun device as a surrogate
> > > > for hardware or other software emulation.
> > > 
> > > I don't like this idea.  Which tools are you trying to fool?  How does
> > > this work when you don't implement any driver-specific behaviour (e.g.
> > > SIOCDEVPRIVATE) they expect?
> > 
> > We use surrogate interfaces in user mode application and want to
> > display different information for these than the normal TUN device.
> 
> What is the problem that can't be solved purely in userland?
> 
> Ben.
> 

There applications (like SNMP) that use ethtool info.