netdev - Re: PATCH: Network Device Naming mechanism and policy

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Date:	Fri, 9 Oct 2009 11:25:50 -0500
From:	Matt Domsch <matt_domsch@...l.com>
To:	Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@...tta.com>
Cc:	Narendra K <Narendra_K@...l.com>, netdev@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-hotplug@...r.kernel.org, jordan_hargrave@...l.com
Subject: Re: PATCH: Network Device Naming mechanism and policy

On Fri, Oct 09, 2009 at 09:12:47AM -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> On Fri, 9 Oct 2009 11:04:43 -0500
> Narendra K <Narendra_K@...l.com> wrote:
> 
> > By creating character devices for every network device, we can use
> > udev to maintain alternate naming policies for devices, including
> > additional names for the same device, without interfering with the
> > name that the kernel assigns a device.
> > 
> What happens if interface is renamed by either networking API:
>   ip li set dev eth0 name eth-renamed-by-me

udev sees a KOBJ_MOVE uevent.  Today it does not handle these events
at all, but talking with Kay, he believes udev can be extended to
handle that pretty easily.

> or via
>    mv /dev/net/eth0 /dev/net/eth-renamed-by-user

There is no VFS magic today such that this 'mv' will translate into a
device_rename() function inside the kernel.

udev "owns" the /dev/netdev/eth0 device node name.  If a user (root)
does a 'mv', the symlink referants will be broken.  This is no
different than doing so for a disk device or any other udev-managed
device node.  If someone does a
  mv /dev/sda /dev/sda-mybootdisk
and is relying on the /dev/disk/by-label/mybootdisk -> /dev/sda
symlink in some way, the application will fail.

> or if both are done at same time (what is locking model?)

There is no locking model.  udev will serialize the rename events
though, as seen in userspace.

Thanks,
Matt

-- 
Matt Domsch
Technology Strategist, Dell Office of the CTO
linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux
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