static vif/tap names

[Jim Fehlig <jfehlig@novell.com>]

I have received user requests for static vif/tap names.  The use case is
certainly valid: dom0 tools require consistent and predefined names of
virtual network interfaces.

The Xen vifname parameter satisfies this use case for pv vifs, but
emulated vifs are named dynamically, e.g. tapX.Y.  My initial thought
was to honor the vifname parameter when generating the qemu args, but
there are cases when both pv and emulated vifs are created - e.g. when
vif config contains no 'type=' param or when 'type=ioemu'.

Two options I have considered are:

1. Appending vifname, if specified, to "tap" (tap-<vifname>), otherwise
use current dynamic tapX.Y
2. Add a 'tapname=' parameter to vif config.  This would allow
controlling the vif and tap interface names independently.

Is once of these solutions acceptable?  Any alternate suggestions?

Regards,
Jim