Interface naming

Gibsonist · 03-16-2005, 09:33 PM

Hi
I installed a "old PCI wireless card" (Netgear MA311) on my server to monitor my own wlan
I use the orinoco drivers and it works fine, BUT

The thing bothering me is that it come up as eth1

is there anyway to rename the interface to something like wlan0 or so as I would like to keep my wired and wireless conns separated clearly

Matir · 03-16-2005, 10:12 PM

Most likely, this would require some sort of driver hack. I don't know exactly what part to point you to, sorry.

Gibsonist · 03-16-2005, 10:25 PM

i heard there was a way of "aliasing" interface names but the person couldnt help me further.

Matir · 03-16-2005, 10:49 PM

I'm not sure about aliasing interfaces. Perhaps there's a way, but I've not heard of it. Even then you'd have more than one interface name, which, I would think, would make it even harder to keep them straight.

Gibsonist · 03-16-2005, 10:54 PM

Also true - is a pain in the backside.
So i belief to let it be would be the most sensible solution

Matir · 03-16-2005, 11:12 PM

That is certainly an option.

It would be interesting to modify the ifconfig (and related) userspace tools to be able to assign a "Nickname" to interfaces: they would still be properly known as lo, eth0, wlan0, whatever, but in ifconfig we could see "Nickname: Intel e1000 Gigabit". I think it would be relatively trivial to perform this. I suppose a bit of a kernel mod would be needed, to store the information. ifconfig could have "ifconfig eth0 nick 'nickname'" or similar.

Gibsonist · 03-16-2005, 11:25 PM

would be an idea
or simply have a stupid file in /etc similar to a hostfile perhaps?

only prblm is I'm not a C(++) programmer so it is bit out of my reach
but it would be interesting as you clearly stated