Re: network interface *name* alias support?

[Jon Masters <jonathan@jonmasters.org>]

On Fri, 2008-05-23 at 14:07 +0100, David Woodhouse wrote:
> 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?

Well, for various reasons, we have folks who want to always retain the
existing "legacy" naming to "avoid confusion". Yeah, personally I don't
really think it matters...but apparently it does, so I'm happy to oblige
and have udev set an alias according to physical slot position aswell.

Jon.