From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Woodhouse Subject: Re: network interface *name* alias support? Date: Fri, 23 May 2008 14:07:50 +0100 Message-ID: <1211548070.21380.500.camel@pmac.infradead.org> References: <1211410078.27149.70.camel@perihelion> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: netdev To: Jon Masters Return-path: Received: from bombadil.infradead.org ([18.85.46.34]:38325 "EHLO bombadil.infradead.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752881AbYEWNHx (ORCPT ); Fri, 23 May 2008 09:07:53 -0400 In-Reply-To: <1211410078.27149.70.camel@perihelion> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Wed, 2008-05-21 at 18:47 -0400, Jon Masters wrote: > > I would like to add support for network interface name aliases to the > kernel. For example, rather than simply "eth0", one might have: > > eth0 -> eth_slot_0_0 > > And use either name for device configuration, etc. This should be pretty > easy, but I would like some comments - in particular, has this been done > already and I'm missing something? > > Why is this useful? Say, for example that your a manufacturer building > machines using the latest DMI extension to SMBIOS that allows you to > specify what the physical ordering of interfaces is. Then, a > distribution might choose to configure based on the physical slot > ordering specified by the vendor - allowing for "rip and replace". Why do you need a given interface to have more than one name? Why not just assign names according to whatever criteria you care about? That's entirely a udev problem, surely? -- dwmw2