I see that the on-board NICs are enumerated 1, 2, 3, & 4. What does this mean for motherboards that have more than 4 NICs? We use ATCA boards that consistently have 6 to 8 on-board NICs. How would these be enumerated under the new system?
Avoiding this feature
Will there be any way to disable this feature on fresh install? (e.g. removing udev-script or disabling it in script in /etc/sysconf). I want to keep with Linux interface naming standards based on protocol (eth, ppp, tun, tap) and not with half-half mess made by this feature. Thank you for reply.
2011-01-28 Yes, we are adding a kernel command line option to disable biosdevname from running at install time; you can also uninstall the biosdevname package after install. -mdomsch
Avoiding it at all!
This new feature can introduce much more problems then it solves. Looks scary for me as sysadmin and programmer. Well, a lot of net scripts, iptables rules and other stuff involved. Yes, I use variables in bash, and other tricks that will help me to survive such global change. But the question is simple: Is a such little benefit worth of such huge bunch of stupid work for all Fedora users?
Optimizing for an edge case?
It seems to me this is simply optimizing for an edge case instead of the general use.
Frankly using mii-tool seems much more reliable and easier to identify the Nics. and then just label them in the ifcfg-* files. And what's to say that Motherboards are going to consistently have their ports named and numbered in a consistent order either? the udev changes with the 70-persistent-net* file seems to have made nic handling on linux SOO much better when adding multiple nics in a system. Especially since once you find out which nic is which you can just edit the file and name them where you want and reboot. --Urkle 21:34, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
Virtual Function Devices?
Newer server NICs often have a feature called Virtual Functions. This is a virtual NIC bridged to a real NIC port. The virtual function can then be assigned to a virtual machine using Vt-d. This avoids the need for context switches during send/receive and increases network speed for virtual machines.
How will the virtual functions be called (on the host, while the vm is not active)?
Will they get a constant name, even if their MACs are random?
I ask this because the naming of vfs was a big mess when vfs were first introduced. --Gvegidy 21:41, 26 January 2011 (UTC)