Hi all,

recently, ramips/mt7621 has switched to DSA and mvebu [1] and kirkwood [2] are 
waiting for it.

On ramips, port names have mostly been chosen to be lanX (lan1, lan2, ...) and 
wan.

On other targets using DT files from kernel, there doesn't seem to be a 
particular rule. Sometimes the same pattern is used, sometimes "wan" is 
replaced by "internet" and for kirkwood, we had two cases where ethernetX was 
used for lan ports.

Being a pedantic person, this bothers me. Despite, having the conversion on 
several targets now seems to be a good chance to agree on a guideline for this 
_before_ it is done differently everywhere across OpenWrt.

Currently, I see the following options:

1. Stick to what the kernel does:
Where the kernel defines names, just use them. Add them to 02_network and have 
them exposed to the user.
For "our" targets, we will still have to decide. For other targets, just do 
what similar devices have done (though kernel might be inconsistent there even 
for related devices).
Adjusting them in kernel seems no option, as we've learned from Linksys 
nicknames discussion that labels might be considered ABI.
This will be the cheapest way.

2. Use a common scheme
We may define a common scheme, e.g. the lanX and wan names as used on 
ramips/mt7621 after bump to 5.4.
That will require to change corresponding DTS files with other names from 
kernel and keep those patches forever. They will be trivial to make and very 
easy to rebase/refresh, but we have to keep them.
On the plus side: User experience (for most users) will be improved. While 
there still is inconsistency between swconfig and DSA, at least DSA won't have 
subspecies then. So, the average user could expect a lan port to be called 
lan1, lan2, ... etc. instead of having to look it up. Our user-space config 
files (board.d) would be easier/more unified.
Of course, some advanced users switching between distros (where this is 
possible) would have changing interface names, but a lot else will change for 
them as well.

3. Care for vendor names
In particular cases, e.g. for EdgeRouter X [3], we are currently using labels 
following the vendor scheme (eth0 to eth4 instead of lan0 to lan4).
This could represent an additional option, both in case of using scheme 2 or 
for our own targets if we stick to scheme 1.
This would break the "unified user experience" as in scheme 2, but would 
fulfill "what the user expects from vendor", like we do it for MAC address, LED 
behavior etc.

Personally, I have a preference for 2 (and am unsure about 3), as to me the 
user experience is the most valuable asset in this context and I do not want to 
have to stick to some name the kernel have agreed on in a single case 10 years 
ago (exaggerating here, no offense ...).

Please share your thoughts.

Best

Adrian

[1] https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/2935
[2] https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/2944
[3] 
https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/commit/5acd1ed0be0d78847cd7d9d5599526f59babaf4d

Attachment: openpgp-digital-signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

_______________________________________________
openwrt-devel mailing list
openwrt-devel@lists.openwrt.org
https://lists.openwrt.org/mailman/listinfo/openwrt-devel

Reply via email to