Re: [PATCH v8 0/6] of: teach overlay code to keep /aliases in sync

["Abdurrahman Hussain" <abdurrahman@nexthop.ai>]

On Fri, Nov 06, 2026 at 07:24:32AM -0600, Rob Herring wrote:
> What I would like is aliases are not supported in overlays (applied
> after boot).
>
> Don't we already have consistent naming on hotpluggable devices such as
> network adapters? All that is solved in userspace. Why do we need DT to
> solve this here?

Netdevs can be renamed, and that is why userspace can solve it for them.
i2c adapters can't be renamed.

I'm also not sure "after boot" is a clear boundary. Overlays applied by
drivers such as lan966x_pci, or for an FPGA on an x86 host, are applied
during probe. They describe fixed, soldered-down hardware in the same
way a base DT would. The same /aliases node gives stable numbering when
it is in the base DT and is silently ignored when it comes from an
overlay, even though it is written to the live tree and visible in
/proc/device-tree.

If an alias is a request, as you said, then honoring it when possible
and falling back with a warning when it isn't can't break a working
system. Today such a request is simply never honored. That was the
regression you were worried about, and the fallback covers it.

If you still don't want overlays to set aliases, is there another way
you'd accept to get stable bus numbers for hardware described by an
overlay? I'm happy to rework the series in a different direction.

Thanks,
Abdurrahman