Re: Specifying names for tap interfaces

[Matthew Mondor <mm_lists%pulsar-zone.net@localhost>]

On Mon, 18 Jun 2012 08:55:26 -0400
Greg Troxel <gdt%ir.bbn.com@localhost> wrote:

>   in dom0, have xl tell qemu to make an interface for the guest, and to
>   name it /dev/tap-NNN where xl chooses that
> 
>   have qemu create a tap and arrange the name
> 
>   have xl in the dom0 bridge tapNNN to whatever

[...]

>   qemu could be given a name and then create a symlink from that name to
>   whatever tap chooses.  or use mknod to make the name actually be the
>   special file.

Roger, please correct me as necessary,

If I understand (from a previous discussion we had on #netbsd), the
goal is not to open the device using another name (symlink or alternate
mknod-created file), but to have ifconfig show another name than
tap<n>.  This is where an eventual TAPSIFNAME might allow one to say,
open the cloning device /dev/tap and have ifconfig report it as
"foobar" instead of "tap<n>", and have bridge accept to add "foobar".

I guess that another possibility would be to allow ifconfig and
interfaces to generically support name aliases, such that one could add
an alias "foobar" to "tap14" or such...

I however didn't understand exactly why the feature needed, because an
address is generally assigned to an interface, and that should show up
and possibly resolve using DNS, which can also allow to easily identify
the interfaces apart (i.e. ifconfig -aN).  I assume it's a
user-friendlyness issue.

Thanks,
-- 
Matt