[LEDE-DEV] [PATCH] BT Home Hub 5A: configure Red Ethernet as DMZ interface (FS#490) and fix Red Ethernet switch port (FS#390)

[Felix Fietkau]

On 2017-02-12 15:16, Mauro M. wrote:
> Hello Felix,
> 
> Thank you for your comments.
> 
> 
> On 11/02/17 21:49, Felix Fietkau wrote:
>> Hey Mauro,
>> please don't take Mathias' feedback as hostile, it really isn't. His
> Please see the threads on FS#390 and FS#321 there is a pattern.
I don't see any real hostility in there, I guess he was sometimes a bit
frustrated because in your patches and responses you seemed to consider
only your device and ignored his concerns about these changes affecting
other devices in a negative way.

>> patch seems to take the same basic approach as yours, so I would
>> consider his request for testing his staging tree reasonable.
> I am sure that technically Mathias' patch will work. The problem is not 
> technical, but rather in the prioritization of the Red Ethernet Use 
> Cases that I documented in my previous post.
Yes, I understand your use case.

>> While you can treat the extra port in your configuration as a 'dmz'
>> interface, I don't think it is reasonable for the default config.
>> You should be able to make your configuration work even with his changes.
>> Could you please run the test even if you still like your change better?
> I understand the logic to name the Red Ethernet as "wan". This would be 
> aligned to the majority of routers that do not have an xDSL port. 
> However, since I want to have full control from the wire entering my 
> premises, I always prefer a router with an actual xDSL WAN port. In my 
> area the upgrade from xDSL is an actual Ethernet IP/IP Subnet (no pppoe 
> necessary).
Please note that I'm not comparing this situation to routers without
xDSL part at all. I specifically mentioned the Buffalo device, because
it is also a VR9 device with built-in modem and with a separate WAN
ethernet port.

> Therefore I never had any use for routers with a WAN Ethernet as WAN. I 
> just use the WAN Interface with a static IP on the DMZ.
> 
> On xDSL routers the DSL port has always been the WAN interface.
> The Red Ethernet on BT Home Hub 5 xDSL router is an extra bonus.
You really don't need to go on explaining your use case to me, I already
fully understood it from the first time you described it. I also
understand why you prefer it over having the port labelled as WAN.
However, the default use of this port (just as on the Buffalo device) is
as a secondary WAN port (in case the xDSL part does not get used).

This is the reason why I consider Mathias' change to treat the port as a
secondary WAN port more appropriate here, including the fact that this
makes support for the HomeHub device more consistent with other devices
that have a similar hardware configuration, e.g. the Buffalo device that
I mentioned.

> I believe that renaming the current "wan" to "xwan" on xDSL routers 
> would be a mistake because it is not backward compatible.
Technically, both your change and Mathias' change are breaking backwards
compatibility in some cases, because eth1 gets changed to a VLAN on
eth0. There is no real way around that.

@Mathias: could you perhaps refactor the commits to put the wan->xwan
rename *after* the ethernet port VLAN change?
I'm also a bit sceptical about the interface rename and would like to
discuss this further, but I think the VLAN change is important enough to
get it in the tree soon.

- Felix