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From: Segher Boessenkool <segher@kernel.crashing.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 06/17] Document the linux,network-index property.
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:30:30 +0100
To: Scott Wood <scottwood@freescale.com>
Cc: linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org
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> To allow more robust association of each network device node with an
> index (such as is used by the firmware or an EEPROM to indicate MAC
> addresses), a network device's node may specify the index explicitly.

> +   - linux,network-index : This is the intended "index" of this
> +     network device.  This is used by the bootwrapper to interpret
> +     MAC addresses passed by the firmware when no information other
> +     than indices is available to associate an address with a device.

What a nasty thing, and quite a misnomer too.  Linux
_already_ knows how to bind ethN to which device, based
on user preferences; what you are really after is a way
to label the several network devices in your device tree
for use by firmware.

There already is a completely generic such mechanism; it's
called "aliases".

And yes I still believe the flattened dev tree should
implement the "/aliases" node and drop the other alias
mechanism, the OF-defined way is so much more flexible.
It even shows up in /proc/device-tree :-)


Segher