Re: extended netdevice naming proposal

[Ben Hutchings <bhutchings@solarflare.com>]

On Thu, 2010-11-18 at 12:51 -0600, Matt Domsch wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 02:29:57AM +0000, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > On Wed, 2010-11-17 at 21:10 -0500, Bill Nottingham wrote:
> > > Matt Domsch (Matt_Domsch@dell.com) said: 
> > > > (location)(slot)#(port)/(instance).(vlan)
> > > 
> > > AIUI, the kernel explicitly rejects '/' in the name (for fairly obvious
> > > sysfs reasons.) So you'd at least need a different delimiter. There may
> > > also be potential confusion with pci01#03:02.0001 with someone thinking
> > > that's bus/dev/fn, if we're being really petty.
> > 
> > ':' is also reserved for alias interfaces, the old way of assigning
> > multiple IP addresses.
> > 
> > I would say '-' is a good separator, but that might result in ambiguity
> > in IRQ names.
> 
> How about underscore to separate VFs? 
> (location)(slot)#(port)_(instance).(vlan)

That does seem like the best separator available.

> And 'em' as prefix for embedded?
[...]

That also fits the mnemonic Ethernet on Motherboard, which is nice.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings, Senior Software Engineer, Solarflare Communications
Not speaking for my employer; that's the marketing department's job.
They asked us to note that Solarflare product names are trademarked.