On Wed, 2 Nov 2022 01:48:09 +0100 Andrew Lunn wrote: > Changing the interface name while running is probably not an > issue. There are a few drivers which report the name to the firmware, > presumably for logging, and phoning home, but it should not otherwise > affect the hardware. Agreed. BTW I wonder if we really want to introduce a netconsole specific uAPI for this or go ahead with something more general. A sysctl for global "allow UP rename"? We added the live renaming for failover a while back and there were no reports of user space breaking as far as I know. So perhaps nobody actually cares and we should allow renaming all interfaces while UP? For backwards compat we can add a sysctl as mentioned or a rtnetlink "I know what I'm doing" flag? Maybe print an info message into the logs for a few releases to aid debug? IOW either there is a reason we don't allow rename while up, and netconsole being bound to an interface is immaterial. Or there is no reason and we should allow all.
