On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 11:36:38AM -0600, dann frazier wrote: > 1;2202;0cOn Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 10:43:49PM +0530, Narendra_K@xxxxxxxx wrote: > > > > >> These device nodes are not functional at the moment - open() returns > > >> -ENOSYS. Their only purpose is to provide userspace with a kernel > > >> name to ifindex mapping, in a form that udev can easily manage. > > > > > >If the idea is just to provide a userspace-visible mapping > > >(and presumably take advantage of udev's infrastructure for > > >naming) does this need kernel changes? Could this be a > > >hierarchy under e.g. /etc/udev instead, using plain text > > >files? It still means we need something like libnetdevname for > > >apps to do the translation, but I'm not seeing why it matters > > >how this map is stored. Is there some special property of the > > >character devices (e.g. uevents) that we're not already > > >getting with the existing interfaces? > > > > Yes. The char device by itself doesn't help in any way. But it provides > > a flexible mechanism to provide multiple names for the same device, just > > the way it is for disks. > > Right - so any reason this couldn't be implemented completely in > userspace by having udev manipulate plain text files under say > /etc/udev/net/? > > I do agree that it would be nice for admins/installers to tweak/use > nic names in a similar way to storage names (udev rules), and it might > let us take advantage of a lot of the existing udev code. Is there interest in this approach? - modify udev to manage network devices names as regular (non-device) files (stored in /etc/udev, /dev/netdev, or wherever) - use the existing udev rules to manage symlinks to these files - point libnetdevname at these text files for its name resolution I've started prototyping this, and it certainly looks possible w/o any kernel changes. However, I could probably use some advice from a udev person to do a proper implementation. -- dann frazier -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-hotplug" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
