Re: [RFC] longer netdev names proposal

[Jiri Pirko <jiri@resnulli.us>]

Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 09:35:27PM CEST, dcbw@redhat.com wrote:
>On Thu, 2019-06-27 at 12:20 -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
>> On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 20:39:48 +0200
>> Michal Kubecek <mkubecek@suse.cz> wrote:
>> 
>> > > $ ip li set dev enp3s0 alias "Onboard Ethernet"
>> > > # ip link show "Onboard Ethernet"
>> > > Device "Onboard Ethernet" does not exist.
>> > > 
>> > > So it does not really appear to be an alias, it is a label. To be
>> > > truly useful, it needs to be more than a label, it needs to be a
>> > > real
>> > > alias which you can use.  
>> > 
>> > That's exactly what I meant: to be really useful, one should be
>> > able to
>> > use the alias(es) for setting device options, for adding routes, in
>> > netfilter rules etc.
>> > 
>> > Michal
>> 
>> The kernel doesn't enforce uniqueness of alias.
>
>Can we even enforce unique aliases/labels? Given that the kernel hasn't
>enforced that in the past there's a good possibility of breaking stuff
>if it started. (unfortunately)

Correct. I think that Michal's idea to introduce "real aliases" is very
intereting. However, the existing "alias" as we have it does not seem
right to be used. Also because of the UAPI. We have IFLA_IFALIAS which
is a single value. For "real aliases" we need nested array.

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