On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:17:51 -0400
"Loke, Chetan" [off-list ref] wrote:

What if we extend 'IFNAMSIZ'(beyond 16 chars. Older apps don't need to
worry because they have been working w/ 16 chars anyways) and also get
ifalias to work in udev(Or is ifalias a bad idea?)?

Chetan

That is  non-starter for the ioctl() style interface.

struct ifreq {
#define IFHWADDRLEN	6
	union
	{
		char	ifrn_name[IFNAMSIZ];		/* if name, e.g. "en0" */
	} ifr_ifrn;
	
	union {
		struct	sockaddr ifru_addr;
		struct	sockaddr ifru_dstaddr;
		struct	sockaddr ifru_broadaddr;
		struct	sockaddr ifru_netmask;
		struct  sockaddr ifru_hwaddr;
		short	ifru_flags;
		int	ifru_ivalue;
		int	ifru_mtu;
		struct  ifmap ifru_map;
		char	ifru_slave[IFNAMSIZ];	/* Just fits the size */
		char	ifru_newname[IFNAMSIZ];
		void __user *	ifru_data;
		struct	if_settings ifru_settings;
	} ifr_ifru;
};

Applications do:
   	strncpy(ifr.ifr_name, "my name", IFNAMSIZ);
	ioctl(fd, SIOCGHWADDR, &ifr)