Bug#1107187: trixie: document interface naming changes for i40e with 6.12 kernel
Harald Dunkel wrote:
> The interface names must not change,
Alas, they sometimes do, and the developers think that's "expected".
We're not going to achieve anything by moaning about how Predictable
Names are an evil lie - we need either
1) large quantities of really clever C code,
2) hired assassins, or
3) documentation.
Since I'm an arts graduate with no spare cash I'm aiming for option 3,
and since we're about to have a new release I'm mostly focussing on
the Release Notes, although in principle this isn't a problem that's
limited to new stable releases; it can also affect testing/sid users,
bpo or homebrew kernels, and anyone with a cursed PCI card.
For a lot of ordinary desktop users it won't matter if a NIC does
change its name on trixie; for others it's something they can easily
fix as necessary (but we might mention it somewhere in Release Notes
4.5+). It's only admins who are upgrading machines over SSH who need
a warning in section 4.4, but it's not clear what it should advise
beyond "read https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkInterfaceNames and
especially the parts about corner cases and safety nets".
Personally I would always use a custom.link file to give my interfaces
the same simple standard names even on ordinary personal machines
where it hardly matters, let alone mission-critical servers. But I
can't see any evidence of (e.g.) ArchWiki treating this as recommended
best practice, so I'm not pushing it as the official Debian solution.
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
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