Subject: Re: [PATCH] udev: create empty regular files to represent net interfaces

From: Greg KH <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:55:56 -0700

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 04:49:35PM +0000, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> 3. Name assignment mechanism
> Disks: kernel suggests a name; udev can assign any number
> ???Net devices: kernel assigns a single name; udev can override it
> 
> 4. Default name assignment policy
> Disks: names disk by device path (id), label and UUID
> ???Net devices: assigns arbitrary stable names per (MAC address, subtype)
> 
> 5. Naming by users
> Disks: user can identify by any method without having to choose on a
> system-wide basis
> Net devices: user must identify by single name; policy can be overridden
> on a system-wide basis
> 
> I fully understand the technical reasons for differences 3-5, but why
> should users have to put up with it?

That is because network devices are not referred to by /dev/ nodes where
multiple symlinks would solve the naming problem.

thanks,

greg k-h