Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Thomas Orgis <thomas-forum AT orgis.org>]

Am Tue, 20 Jun 2006 11:24:28 +0200
schrieb Pieter Lenaerts <e-type AT sourcemage.org>:

> 2. this led us to think about a bus and id variable pair, uniquely
> identifying the network devices. netconf could present the user with a
> list of devices from /sys/class/net/ and automagically fill the variable
> pair.

Erm, I didn't attend that discussion but do you mean pci device ids? Or
the pci bus address? Both together may identify a card, one alone not.
We shouldn't get confused with multiple identical nics in one machine
and also the config shouldn't break without need when a card (maybe the
only one!) is moved to another slot.
I've learned that the MAC is _the_ way to identify a NIC - as long as
one hasn't fiddled with it before.
I think it would be enough to separate the fields for setting and getting
the mac (MAC, DEVICE_MAC) and stay with the mac as identifier.
So only who really intends to does change the mac of the device -
I think that someone _really_ should know what he is up to, anyway,
and should be prepared for any slight discomfort.
I don't see the network scripts in trouble with changing device name and
mac since they should know what _they_ do and if the user interferes he
know what he does.


Thomas.