systemd / systemd/systemd

Predictable device names for PHYs

Open
#12,561 6 comments 2 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

needs-patch predictable-ifnames RFE 🎁 udev
Dominant language
C
Stars
16.7k
Forks
4.7k
Avg merge
1d 6h
Merged PRs (30d)
140

Description

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
Somewhat recently (with their 0.18 release), IWD has started to manage the network interfaces (non-PHYs?) of wifi cards itself. Their idea, as described here seems to be that a wifi card is better represented by it's PHY interface, than its network interface.

This seems sensible, and as they mention at the end of the above linked page, it would make sense to have the PHYs named predictably instead of or in addition to the default network interfaces.

Describe the solution you'd like
udev could rename the PHYs predictably, similar to how it renames actual network interfaces.

Describe alternatives you've considered
If udev does not touch the PHYs, it is up to the respective supplicant/wifi daemon to figure out how to configure multiple wifi cards predictably, with PHY names possibly being unstable.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by tracing udev’s existing predictable network-interface naming and reading the linked IWD interface-lifecycle description. Done means PHYs receive predictable names that support multiple Wi-Fi cards; the issue names no source file or test, so the relevant code and test entry points still need to be located.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
c, linux
Domain
networking, operating-systems
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
38/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.