Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v1 7/8] net: Add a new convenience option "-n" to configure default/on-board NICs

[Paolo Bonzini]

On 19/02/2018 10:15, Thomas Huth wrote:
> The legacy "-net" option can be quite confusing for the users since most
> people do not expect to get a "vlan" hub between their emulated guest
> hardware and the host backend. But so far, we are also not able to get
> rid of "-net" completely, since it is the only way to configure on-board
> NICs that can not be instantiated via "-device" yet. It's also a little
> bit shorter to type "-net nic -net tap" instead of "-device xyz,netdev=n1
> -netdev tap,id=n1".
> 
> So what we need is a new convenience option that is shorter to type than
> the full -device + -netdev stuff, and which can be used to configure the
> on-board NICs that can not be handled via -device yet. Thus this patch now
> provides such a new option "-n": It adds an entry in the nd_table to
> configure a on-board / default NIC, creates a host backend and connects
> the two directly, without a confusing "vlan" hub inbetween.

Sorry for the bikeshedding, but... perhaps "-n" is a bit bold.  While I
initially couldn't come up with a better one, after putting some thought
into it "-nic" came to mind.  There's precedent in naming the option for
the *front-end* device that it creates, whereas the arguments define
either the front-end (e.g. "model") or the back-end; see for example
"-drive".  "-nic tap,model=e1000" and "-nic none" both make nice sense.

Thanks,

Paolo