Re: Specifying names for tap interfaces

[Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>]

On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 12:00:11AM +0200, Jean-Yves Migeon wrote:
> > Also, as someone already suggested it will be interesting to be able
> > to give interfaces associated with guests a permanent name, which this
> > approach doesn't solve. The solution should be at least applicable to
> > both tap and vif interfaces, but since we are there, why not make it
> > work for all network interfaces? I think other users might benefit
> > from this feature (like not having to rewrite firewall rules when
> > changing network cards).
> 
> IMHO this is not the right place to fix this. First, most firewalls out
> there support variables, like macros in pf.conf. IMHO adding more
> complexity to kernel for this is questionable.

it's not only firewalls. It's everything that uses interface names.
There is firewall rules of course, but also mrtg scripts, nagios
scripts, network daemons, and so on.

> 
> Instead of renaming your interface inside the config files, you alias it
> in kernel. Which is anyway a dubious construct because it will not
> survive a reboot... except if you edit a config file that sets up this
> aliasing for you. Ewww. Back to square one.

No: you only have to rename /etc/ifconfig.foo to ifconfig.bar. As this is where
the alias will be set, everything will follow.

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>
     NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--