On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 08:35:38PM +0200, Andrew Lunn wrote: > On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 11:23:05AM -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote: > > On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 20:08:03 +0200 Michal Kubecek <mkube...@suse.cz> wrote: > > > > > It often feels as a deficiency that unlike block devices where we can > > > keep one name and create multiple symlinks based on different naming > > > schemes, network devices can have only one name. There are aliases but > > > AFAIK they are only used (and can be only used) for SNMP. IMHO this > > > limitation is part of the mess that left us with so-called "predictable > > > names" which are in practice neither persistent nor predictable. > > > > > > So perhaps we could introduce actual aliases (or altnames or whatever we > > > would call them) for network devices that could be used to identify > > > a network device whenever both kernel and userspace tool supports them. > > > Old (and ancient) tools would have to use the one canonical name limited > > > to current IFNAMSIZ, new tools would allow using any alias which could > > > be longer. > > > > That is already there in current network model. > > # ip li set dev eno1 alias 'Onboard Ethernet' > > # ip li show dev eno1 > > 2: eno1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP mode > > DEFAULT group default qlen 1000 > > link/ether ac:1f:6b:74:38:c0 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff > > alias Onboard Ethernet > > $ ip li set dev enp3s0 alias "Onboard Ethernet" > # ip link show "Onboard Ethernet" > Device "Onboard Ethernet" does not exist. > > So it does not really appear to be an alias, it is a label. To be > truly useful, it needs to be more than a label, it needs to be a real > alias which you can use.
That's exactly what I meant: to be really useful, one should be able to use the alias(es) for setting device options, for adding routes, in netfilter rules etc. Michal
