>> > >> You need to know the incoming hardware the packet arrived on to
>> > >> assign an address to the host, so I hope this is what IP_RECVIF is
>> > >> telling you.
>> > 
>> > IP_RECVIF gets you the if_index value for the interface in question.
>> > Mapping that to anything useful is up to the packet recipient.
>> 
>> I remember these being discussed at one of the last XNET meetings I
>> attanded.  I couldn't then work out how if_index numbers helped you
>> do anything useful :-)
>>
>> The guys from sun seemed to think they were vital though.
>
>What you're supposed to have in addition to the index is a way to use
>it to query for all the other state associated with the interface.  Then
>the index can become the canonical way for software to refer to an
>interface, leaving the pretty ascii name for humans to use.

well...if there was a kernel interface that could make use of said
numbers...that'd be cool.  as it is, they're not much good to me.  i
used it in the kernel once, though.  there it was good.

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