On 26/12/2016 20:35, lee wrote: > Tom H <tomh0...@gmail.com> writes: > >> On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 9:07 PM, lee <l...@yagibdah.de> wrote: >>> Tom H <tomh0...@gmail.com> writes: >>>> On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 3:07 PM, Daniel Frey <djqf...@gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> It is even more frustrating that these so-called predictable network >>>>> names actually can change on a reboot, it's happened to me more than >>>>> once when multiple network cards are detected in a different order. >>>> >>>> >From Kay Sievers in [1]: >>>> >>>> <BEGIN> >>>> Btw, predictable means it will not change between reboots, that names >>>> will not depend on enumeration order within the same setup. It does >>>> not mean or promise, that added kernel/driver/firmware features will >>>> not result in different names. That is expected behavior. >>>> </END> >>>> >>>> [1] >>>> https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2015-October/034614.html >>> >>> So the names will not change when rebooting and are to be expected to >>> possibly change at any time. >>> >>> How is that more reliable? >> >> It's more reliable than using the kernel's names because the names >> won't change UNLESS there's kernel/driver/firmware change for that >> NIC. I doubt that these changes occur that often. Perhaps someone else >> knows. > > What happens more often: That a network card is replaced with a > different one or that the software changes? >
OK, let me try explain this again. NIC names are tricky, several posters (myself included) have laid out various methods and options by which it can be done. Experience shows that in real life the simple traditional names are easy to remember but prone to changing and (worse) prone to race conditions. Other methods change less often in reality but the names are somewhat trickier to remember. Opinions on these things differ; experience on these things differ and people's use cases on these things differ greatly. A coder working in this area has to decide what sort of cases they want to support, what problems they want to attempt to solve and what new features they want to introduce; then they have to write the code. Once the code is written, the coder then has to decide what nomenclature to use when describing the software and the effects it has. In this case centered around systemd a word was chosen: "reliable". Some will think it's a good name, some don't care, some will think it's a bad name; and all of those things are basically irrelevant because the name doesn't tell you much abut what the software will do. Reading the fine manual will tell you that. It's all a part of being human because our languages are imprecise, heavily overloaded and hugely redundant. So are our spellings. But we are stuck with it because that's the general emergent behaviour of a homo sapiens brain. Arguing abut this is about as nonsensical as arguing about whether "lee" is a good handle on a forum or not. To a pedant it's a bad name, one can't tell if you are male, female or if it's actually an Asian family name.... Or one could do what most folk do, and not see a problem with 3 letters -- Alan McKinnon alan.mckin...@gmail.com
