Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 16 May 2001 12:31:12 +1000 | From | Andrew Morton <> | Subject | Re: LANANA: To Pending Device Number Registrants |
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Jonathan Lundell wrote: > > ... > I *like* eth0..n (I'd like net0..n better). And I *can't* ask what > eth0 and eth1 are, by the way, but I should be able to (Jeff Garzik > has proposed an extension to ethtool to help out this lack, but it's > not in Linux today, and needs concrete implementation anyway). > > But that's not my point. I'm *not* proposing that we exchange eth0 > for geographic names. I'm suggesting, though, that the location of > the device is *not* meaningless, because it's the physically-located > RJ45 socket (or whatever) that I have to connect a particular cable > to. Sure, no big deal for systems with a single connection, but it > becomes a real pain when you've got a dozen, which is a reasonable > number for some network-infrastructure functions (eg firewalls). > > When I ifconfig one of a collection of interfaces, I'm very much > talking about the specific physical interface connected via a > specific physical cable to a specific physical switch port. >
Yes, it can be a security trap as well - physically move a card and your firewall rules end up being applied to the wrong connection.
The 2.4 kernel allows you to rename an interface. So you can build a little database of (MAC address/name) pairs. Apply this after booting and before bringing up the interfaces and everything has the name you wanted, based on MAC address.
Andi Kleen has an app which does this:
ftp://ftp.firstfloor.org/pub/ak/smallsrc/nameif.c
but apparently some additional kernel work is needed to make this work 100% correctly. I do not know what the specific problem is.
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