Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:00:57 +0000 | From | Alan Cox <> | Subject | Re: Network Device Naming mechanism and policy |
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> If the MAC address isn't a UUID for the device, then *what* is?
MAC is technically per system if desired (eg old Sun boxes) and that is quite valid by IEE802.3. In that case you need MAC + topology.
If you are running DECnet your system runs on assigned MAC addresses so you also have to be careful to use the EPROM MAC (if one exists which is 99.9% of the time) + topology.
> Either people want (a) a name assigned to a specific device (which > implies a UUID like a MAC address stored on that device somewhere > accessible to the driver at plug/boot time), or they want (b) to assign > a name to a *position* on the PCI or USB or firewire or whatever bus, or > they (c) don't care about this at all.
I'd argue the fumdamental problem is that I can do this
ln -s /dev/sda /dev/thebigdiskunderthefridge
but cannot ln -s /dev/eth0 /dev/ethernet/slot0
and the SIOCGIF/SIF BSD style ioctl interface doesn't do pathnames or file handles of network devices.
Anyone feel up to putting all the network devices into dev space and fixing the ioctls ;)
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