Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/3] net: Make interface aliases available for general usage

From: Richard Weinberger <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 23:43:48 +0100

Stephen,

Am 11.01.2015 um 23:40 schrieb Stephen Hemminger:
> On Sun, 11 Jan 2015 21:52:49 +0100
> Richard Weinberger <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
>> Allow interface aliases to be used as regular interfaces.
>> Such that a command sequence like this one works:
>> $ ip l set eth0 alias internet
>> $ ip a s internet
>> $ tcpdump -n -i internet
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Richard Weinberger <[email-masked]>
> 
> There is already a ifalias and it is used by SNMP.
> But the common practice is to put longer descriptive names which aren't going
> to be usable and there is no requirement that they be unique.

Actually I'm using ifalias. This patch just exposes it.

> I think you can't do this without breaking some of our users.

My idea was that udev will not set the alias if already one is used.

Thanks,
//richard