net: network device name ifalias support

This patch add support for keeping an additional character alias
associated with an network interface. This is useful for maintaining
the SNMP ifAlias value which is a user defined value. Routers use this
to hold information like which circuit or line it is connected to. It
is just an arbitrary text label on the network device.

There are two exposed interfaces with this patch, the value can be
read/written either via netlink or sysfs.

This could be maintained just by the snmp daemon, but it is more
generally useful for other management tools, and the kernel is good
place to act as an agreed upon interface to store it.

Signed-off-by: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@vyatta.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
This commit is contained in:
Stephen Hemminger
2008-09-22 21:28:11 -07:00
committed by David S. Miller
parent 83bfba5fca
commit 0b815a1a6d
6 changed files with 77 additions and 0 deletions

View File

@ -79,6 +79,7 @@ enum
IFLA_LINKINFO,
#define IFLA_LINKINFO IFLA_LINKINFO
IFLA_NET_NS_PID,
IFLA_IFALIAS,
__IFLA_MAX
};