Re: [patch 2/6] [Network namespace] Network device sharing by view

[ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman)]

Alexey Kuznetsov <kuznet@ms2.inr.ac.ru> writes:

> Hello!
>
>> It may look weird, but do application really *need* to see eth0 rather
>> than eth858354?
>
> Applications do not care, humans do. :-)
>
> What's about applications they just need to see exactly the same device
> after migration. Not only name, but f.e. also its ifindex. If you do not
> create a separate namespace for netdevices, you will inevitably end up
> with some strange hack sort of VPIDs to translate (or to partition) ifindices
> or to tell that "ping -I eth858354 xxx" is too coimplicated application
> to survive migration.


Actually there are applications with peculiar licensing practices that
do look at devices like eth0 to verify you have the appropriate mac, and
do really weird things if you don't have an eth0.

Plus there are other cases where it can be simpler to hard code things
if it is allowable. (The human factor)  Otherwise your configuration
must be done through hotplug scripts.

But yes there are misguided applications that care.

Eric