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

[Stefano Brivio <sbrivio@redhat.com>]

On Tue, 13 Jan 2026 14:00:18 +1100
David Gibson <david@gibson.dropbear.id.au> 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 <david@gibson.dropbear.id.au> 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