Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:

> Josh Good:
>
>   Which brings up a question I have: why didn't UNIX implement ethernet
>   network interfaces as file names in the filesystem? Was that "novelty" a
>   BDS development straying away from AT&T UNIX?
>
> ======
>
> Remember that UNIX has long been a family of systems;
> it's risky to make blanket statements!
>
> The following is from memory; I haven't looked at this
> stuff for a while and am a few kilometers from my
> manuals as I type this.  I can dig out the complete
> story later if anyone wants it; for now, this is just
> the flavour and the existence proof.
>
> Research UNIX, once it supported Ethernet at all, did
> so using devices in /dev; e.g. /dev/qe0[0-7] were the

This is done on a UNIX implementation that uses STREAMS.

SVr4 is such a UNIX.

lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root          29 Mrz  3  2009 /dev/bge -> ../devices/pseudo/clone at 0:bge
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root          38 Mrz  3  2009 /dev/bge0 -> ../devices/pci at 0,0/pci1462,6710 at b:bge0

/dev/bge is a clone device and allows to access and plumb further devices.
/dev/bge0 is the first Broadcom Gigabit Ethernet device.

Jörg

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