On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 17:24:03 +0530
Harini Katakam <hari...@xilinx.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We've had some users requesting control over net device name order
> when multiple ethernet devices are present on a system. I've tried a
> few solutions to this and looked it up on forums. But I apologize if
> I have missed something.
>
> I know that the current system allocates eth<n> as per probe order
> but that is obviously not stably controlled by user (tried DT
> re-ordering and defer probe). One solution is to use DT alias names
> to write to (net_device)->name as follows:
> Devicetree:
> aliases {
> ethernet0 = &mac1;
> ethernet1 = &mac0;
> };
> Driver probe:
> + /* Read ethernet DT alias id and assign to right device name*/
> + id = of_alias_get_id(np, "ethernet");
> + if (id < 0) {
> + dev_warn(&pdev->dev, "failed to get alias id (%u)\n", id);
> + return id;
> + }
> + snprintf(dev->name, sizeof(dev->name), "eth%d", id);
> +
>
> These three drivers seem to have something similar for mdio/phy bus IDs:
> drivers/net/ethernet/broadcom/genet/bcmmii.c:409: id =
> of_alias_get_id(dn, "eth");
> drivers/net/ethernet/samsung/sxgbe/sxgbe_platform.c:43: plat->bus_id =
> of_alias_get_id(np, "ethernet");
> drivers/net/ethernet/stmicro/stmmac/stmmac_platform.c:404:
> plat->bus_id = of_alias_get_id(np, "ethernet");
>
> Drawback: This approach will break if alias is not provided for one
> of the interfaces on board. Not to mention, there could be systems
> with multiple ethernet makes (for ex. Cadence macb and Xilinx axienet)
> If one of the drivers does not have an alias read mechanism, it is
> possible to have clashing ID assignments. Is there any way this
> solution can be changed to be stable/acceptable?
>
> One other alternative I've tried is netdev kernel bootargs but this
> device name was not being picked by the kernel:
> https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.19/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.html
> netdev= <mac1’s interrupt id>, <mac1’s base address>, eth0
> netdev=<mac0’s interrupt id>, <mac0’s base address>, eth1
>
> Could you please suggest any alternatives?
> Thanks!
>
> Regards,
> Harini
Device naming is a hard problem, and there is no perfect solution.
Device tree should be providing hints to userspace policy for naming, not
trying to do it in the kernel.
See:
https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/PredictableNetworkInterfaceNames/
