RedBear-OS/local/docs/NETWORKING-RTL8125-NETCTL.md

Red Bear OS Networking: RTL8125 + netctl

Native stack

Red Bear uses the native Redox wired networking path already present in the base tree:

pcid-spawner → native NIC daemon (rtl8168d, e1000d, ixgbed, virtio-netd) → network.* scheme → smolnetd → dhcpd / netcfg.

This change keeps RTL8125 in that native path instead of trying to introduce a Linux netdevice, sk_buff, or NAPI compatibility layer into linux-kpi.

RTL8125 path

• Autoload now matches 10ec:8125 in recipes/core/base/source/drivers/net/rtl8168d/config.toml.
• The existing Realtek driver binary remains the autoload target (rtl8168d).
• The daemon names RTL8125 devices distinctly in its network.* scheme name suffix.

This is the narrowest viable implementation path in the current tree. It reuses the existing userspace driver, PCI spawn, and netstack plumbing already proven for the native Realtek path.

relibc networking surface

The Redox-facing libc networking surface was extended to stop reporting a fake stub interface:

• net/if.h now exposes a real eth0-based view of the active interface model
• ifaddrs.h now returns a populated eth0 entry
• Redox ioctl() now answers the common read-only SIOCGIF* queries used by interface-aware apps
• netinet/in.h now includes in6_pktinfo
• a minimal resolv.h is now generated in relibc

This is intentionally aligned with the current single-active-interface design in smolnetd and netcfg.

netctl

Red Bear ships a Redox-native netctl compatibility command in redbear-netctl.

Supported profile subset

• Interface=eth0
• Connection=ethernet
• IP=dhcp
• IP=static
• Address=('a.b.c.d/prefix')
• Gateway='a.b.c.d'
• DNS=('a.b.c.d')

Supported commands

• netctl list
• netctl status [profile]
• netctl start <profile>
• netctl stop <profile>
• netctl enable <profile>
• netctl disable [profile]
• netctl is-enabled [profile]
• netctl --boot

Profiles live in /etc/netctl. Shipped examples live in /etc/netctl/examples/.

Boot integration

Red Bear configs install /usr/lib/init.d/12_netctl.service, which runs:

netctl --boot

If /etc/netctl/active contains a profile name, that profile is applied during boot after the base networking services have started.

Validation notes

• redbear-netctl was type-checked and smoke-tested with a fake runtime root by exercising: list, enable, status, and start.
• rtl8168d type-checks with the RTL8125 autoload configuration in place.
• relibc type-checks with the interface and header updates in place.
• ./local/scripts/validate-vm-network-baseline.sh verifies the repo-level VM boot chain for redbear-minimal: pcid-spawner → smolnetd → dhcpd → netctl --boot → wired-dhcp.
• ./local/scripts/test-vm-network-qemu.sh launches a VirtIO-backed QEMU run for the same Phase 2 baseline and prints the in-guest validation commands to run.

Remaining hardware validation

This repo change set wires RTL8125 through the native path, but real hardware validation is still required for full confidence in packet I/O on specific RTL8125 revisions.