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

From: Greg KH <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:20:22 -0700

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 05:12:13PM +0000, Ben Hutchings wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-10-29 at 09:55 -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> Did you even read the last sentence?

Yes, the technical reason is the reason why users have to put up
with it :)