Subject: Re: PATCH: Network Device Naming mechanism and policy

From: Matt Domsch <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 09:51:38 -0500

On Fri, Oct 09, 2009 at 09:00:01AM -0500, Narendra K wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 09, 2009 at 07:12:07PM +0530, K, Narendra wrote:
> > > example udev config:
> > > SUBSYSTEM=="net",
> > SYMLINK+="net/by-mac/$sysfs{ifindex}.$sysfs{address}"
> > 
> > work as well.  But coupling the ifindex to the MAC address like this
> > doesn't work.  (In general, coupling any two unrelated attributes when
> > trying to do persistent names doesn't work.)
> > 
> Attaching the latest patch incorporating review comments.

Thank you Narendra.

Let me also note that we are prepared to have userspace consumers of
this new character device node.

http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Oss/libnetdevname

notes how the kernel patch will interact with udev, describes the new
library helper function in libnetdevname, and has patches for
net-tools, iproute2, and ethtool to make use of the helper function.

As has been noted here, MAC addresses are not necessarily unique to an
interface.  As such, we are not proposing a net/by-mac/* symlink to
/dev/netdev/*.

Thanks,
Matt

-- 
Matt Domsch
Technology Strategist, Dell Office of the CTO
linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux