Re: [PATCH 1/3] conf: Introduce --no-bindtodevice option for testing

13 Jan 2026


      On Tue, 13 Jan 2026 14:00:18 +1100
David Gibson  wrote:
...
On Tue, Jan 13, 2026 at 01:12:01AM +0100, Stefano Brivio wrote:
...
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 14:42:39 +1100
David Gibson  wrote:
...
On Sun, Jan 11, 2026 at 12:33:14AM +0100, Stefano Brivio wrote:
...
I never really understood the point of --no-splice, as there was no
user request whatsoever behind it, but fine, the argument was that it
added some needed functionality, even though I couldn't quite grasp
which one it was.
That was never the argument from _me_ for --no-splice.  For me it was
always that it was useful for development / testing / debugging, not
that it was (directly) useful to end users.
Right, I think Jon meant it was useful to end users. Otherwise, I would
have argued, it should be mentioned in the man page, and, I would have
argued further, the option shouldn't exist at all.
...
That's true in at least
two ways:
  * Allows testing non-splice functionality without having to either
    use passt or create some non-loopback addresses
...but without a loopback address we can't use the tap path anyway.
I'm not sure what you mean here.
Oops, I meant to say "without a loopback address you can't use the
spliced path anyway".
...
If I want to exercise something on
the tap path I can use:
  $ pasta --no-splice [whatever else]
  [...]
  $ socat STDIO TCP:localhost:12345
and I don't need to look up my host's current global IP.
Ah, right, sorry! That's the bit of functionality it actually adds. I
keep forgetting about it. This wasn't possible before.

-- 
Stefano