From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Miller Subject: Re: [RFC] Stable interface index option Date: Tue, 01 Dec 2015 14:28:47 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <20151201.142847.1980856920707150414.davem@davemloft.net> References: <20151201155052.GA14984@principal.rfc2324.org> <1448985743.3387258.454809153.36540D70@webmail.messagingengine.com> <20151201080652.5cba6f8b@xeon-e3> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: hannes@stressinduktion.org, max@rfc2324.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org To: stephen@networkplumber.org Return-path: Received: from shards.monkeyblade.net ([149.20.54.216]:56154 "EHLO shards.monkeyblade.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751416AbbLAT2s (ORCPT ); Tue, 1 Dec 2015 14:28:48 -0500 In-Reply-To: <20151201080652.5cba6f8b@xeon-e3> Sender: netdev-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: From: Stephen Hemminger Date: Tue, 1 Dec 2015 08:06:52 -0800 > On Tue, 01 Dec 2015 17:02:23 +0100 > Hannes Frederic Sowa wrote: > >> On Tue, Dec 1, 2015, at 16:50, Maximilian Wilhelm wrote: >> > > I'm not sure I understand how this would work- are we going to >> > > pin down the ifindex for some subset of interfaces? >> > >> > I'm not sure what your idea is, but I guess we might mean the same >> > thing: >> > >> > What I have in mind is that the user can supply a list of (ifname -> >> > ifindex) entries via a sysfs/procfs interface and if such a list is >> > present, the kernel will search the list for every ifname which is >> > registered and check if there is an entry. If there is, the ifindex >> > for this entry is used. If there is no entry found for the given >> > ifname, the usual algorithm is used (therefore inherently providing >> > backward compatibility). >> >> Sorry to ask because I don't like this feature at all. There was a lot >> of work on stable interface names. Why do you need stable ifindexes, >> which were never meant to be stable for a longer amount of time? > > Also current versions of SNMP provide more useful information about > network interface slot information in ifDescription Well if they do provide strings, then that is probably a better way forward than messing with the kernel.