On Tue, 2018-10-23 at 10:03 -0700, Florian Fainelli wrote:

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On 10/23/18 9:49 AM, Joakim Tjernlund wrote:

quoted

SPI (and others) has a way to define bus number in a aliases:
      aliases {
              ethernet4 = &enet4;
              ethernet0 = &enet0;
              ethernet1 = &enet1;
              ethernet2 = &enet2;
              ethernet3 = &enet3;
              spi0 = &spi0
      };
The 0 in the spi0 alias will translate to bus num 0 so one can control the /dev nodes, like /dev/spidev0
I am looking for the same for ethernet devices:
 ethernet4 = &enet4;  /* should become eth4 */
 ethernet0 = &enet0;  /* should become eth0 */
but I cannot find something like that for eth devices.

Could such functionality be added?

It could, do we want and need to, no. You have the Ethernet alias in
/sys/class/net/*/device/uevent already that would allow you to perform
that (re)naming in user-space:

# cat /sys/class/net/eth0/device/uevent
DRIVER=bcmgenet
OF_NAME=ethernet
OF_FULLNAME=/rdb/ethernet@f0480000
OF_TYPE=network
OF_COMPATIBLE_0=brcm,genet-v5
OF_COMPATIBLE_N=1
OF_ALIAS_0=eth0                 <==================
MODALIAS=of:NethernetTnetworkCbrcm,genet-v5

Yes, one can if one uses udev and can find something to identify the hw I/F with, my
cat /sys/class/net/eth0/device/uevent looks like:
DRIVER=fsl_dpa
MODALIAS=platform:dpaa-ethernet

not sure mdev supports this, does it?
Our simple installer FS(initramfs) doesn't have either udev or mdev.

I also noted that using status = "disabled" didn't work either to create a fix name scheme.
Even worse, all the eth I/F after gets renumbered. It seems to me there
is value in having stability in eth I/F naming at boot.
Then userspace(udev) can rename if need be. 

Sure would like to known more about why this feature is not wanted ?

I found
  https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/4122441/
You quote policy as reason but surely it must be better to
have something stable, connected to the hardware name, than semirandom naming?

 Jocke