netdev - Re: [RFC] longer netdev names proposal

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <20190627183538.GI31189@lunn.ch>
Date:   Thu, 27 Jun 2019 20:35:38 +0200
From:   Andrew Lunn <andrew@...n.ch>
To:     Stephen Hemminger <stephen@...workplumber.org>
Cc:     Michal Kubecek <mkubecek@...e.cz>, netdev@...r.kernel.org,
        David Ahern <dsahern@...il.com>, Jiri Pirko <jiri@...nulli.us>,
        davem@...emloft.net, jakub.kicinski@...ronome.com,
        sthemmin@...rosoft.com, mlxsw@...lanox.com
Subject: Re: [RFC] longer netdev names proposal

On Thu, Jun 27, 2019 at 11:23:05AM -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 20:08:03 +0200
> Michal Kubecek <mkubecek@...e.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.
> > 
> > Michal
> 
>  
> 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

Hi Stephen

$ 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.

     Andrew