Re: [Qemu-devel] pcap-based networking?

[Jim C. Brown]

On Thu, Aug 26, 2004 at 11:42:45AM -0500, Mike Tremoulet wrote:
> All --
> 
> My question is:  Is there a reason to use (or not to use) a
> libpcap/libnet solution for networking?  At a high level, I think of
> it as a queue of incoming packets and a queue of outgoing packets
> (from the standpoint of the guest).  Outgoing packets from the guest
> would be held in a queue and written onto the network via libnet, and
> incoming packets would get captured by libpcap and written to the
> virtual device.
> 
> The advantages for me would be:
> - I can bind this networking to the device of my explicit choosing at
> runtime.  So, I could install a tap device on my host and have qemu
> always use that device, or I could bind it to a second NIC on the
> host.
> - More importantly, this can be somewhat platform independant. 
> Libpcap exists in a very similar, if not identical, API in the form of
> winpcap.  I know there is an equivalent way to write packets to the
> network, but I forget the name right now.
> 
> What would the potential performance impacts be?  Is this something
> that I/we should pursue?  Other thoughts?
> 
> -- Mike

This is a good idea. We should keep the tuntap interface, but adding support
for libpcap is useful for those OSes which do not have a tuntap-like interface.

> 
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