Hello Andreas,
The interface is actually auto-configured through Linode. The extra fake 
interface is not the concern, as we don't even use eth0:1.

iface eth0 inet static
    address 96.126.108.191/24
    gateway 96.126.108.1
    up   ip addr add 192.168.135.145/17 dev eth0 label eth0:1
    down ip addr del 192.168.135.145/17 dev eth0 label eth0:1

I need to clarify, does this mean that "/sbin/ip -o link show eth0:" should not 
be working as opposed to just using "/sbin/ip -o link show eth0"? The extra 
colon (:) is only being shown from what I can see, under Debian Stretch and up. 
Debian 8 shows the ifconfig and Ethernet devices without that extra colon at 
the end. This can be replicated from a stock debian 8 image, just doing a 
dist-upgrade to stretch and the ifconfig changes the format of the interface.

When I run "/sbin/ip -o link show eth0:" on a Debian 8 system, it will still 
show the output of eth0, regardless of that extra colon. On Debian 9, it won't 
show up at all. Again, I'm just basing this on what this 3rd party agent is 
pulling to grab the interfaces on universal OS's other than Debian 9.

The primary issue here is the colon being added after updating to stretch. It 
throws off the functionality of detecting the interfaces on the server because 
eth0: is not a real interface as opposed to eth0


Justin McZeal, Sr. Linux Engineer
Professional Trading Solutions, Inc.
http://professionaltradingsolutions.com
2000 Bering Drive, Ste 250
Houston, Texas 77057
justin.mcz...@professionaltrading.com
(o) 832-516-6385
(c) 832-802-3660


-----Original Message-----
From: Andreas Henriksson [mailto:andr...@fatal.se]
Sent: Wednesday, April 6, 2016 11:59 AM
To: Justin McZeal <justin.mcz...@professionaltrading.com>; 
820...@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: Bug#820212: iproute2: Colons in ethernet names under 
/sbin/ifconfig and /sbin/ip are not being recognized in Stretch

Hello Justin McZeal.

On Wed, Apr 06, 2016 at 11:31:01AM -0500, Justin McZeal wrote:
> Package: iproute2
> Version: 4.3.0-1+b1
> Severity: normal
>
> Dear Maintainer,
> I'm using Stretch packages and I see a fundamental difference in
> ifconfig/ip between Debian 8 and Debian 9. There are extra colons
> being put in after the interface using /sbin/ifconfig and /sbin/ip.
> I'm using a third party firewall agent that is unable to grab the
> network interfaces correctly through /sbin/ip because of the colon not
> being recognized on an interface. I need to know if this is fixable or
> if there's a workaround. Or, is this the intended action? I've tried
> the same procedures below on a Debian 8 system and they report back
> the interface just fine.
[...]

Unfortunate... but the "fake" "foo:X" interfaces has been deprecated for I 
guess soon almost 20 years now. It's not a real interface and there's 
absolutely no reason to use that syntax with ip(route2).

The iproute2 suite has been designed from the start to properly handle multiple 
ip-addresses on the same interface. You can add and remove addresses on the fly 
as you go. No need to bring up extra fake interfaces for that.

You should really stop using that syntax and any software who still relies on 
the syntax (and screen-scraping the output of tools rather than using the 
netlink interface) is likely quite out of date so you should probably consider 
moving to a more modern alternative.

Regards,
Andreas Henriksson

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