[Xorp-hackers] Network interface naming

Bruce M Simpson bms@spc.org
Sun, 23 Jan 2005 05:08:16 +0000


On Sun, Jan 23, 2005 at 12:43:21PM +0800, Ong Beng Hui wrote:
> Having work in Cisco for a while, I don't think there is any
> good way of naming interfaces. I think the best is to keep it
> simple, ie... interface 0, interface 1, and so on... and having
> a platform specific layer to handle the translation of bus, slot,
> port, sub-interface, etc.

I've come to the conclusion that where geographic addressing of network
interfaces and desktop PCs is concerned, there really isn't a reliable
way of doing it unless you have design control over the platform.

This would certainly be the case for a router chassis specifically
designed to run XORP, probably incorporating a bus which complies with
a more recent version of CompactPCI.

There are hacks which can be attempted with off-the-shelf PC hardware,
but they aren't reliable or guaranteed to be supported across a wide
variety of such hardware.

Regards,
BMS