From 1b934761ae366d84feb4b601382fa11b5d775633 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: =?UTF-8?q?Zbigniew=20J=C4=99drzejewski-Szmek?= Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2017 12:13:31 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] man: add a note about Name=eth0 being bad Fixes #2657. --- man/systemd.link.xml | 12 +++++++++++- 1 file changed, 11 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) diff --git a/man/systemd.link.xml b/man/systemd.link.xml index 1a13a22877..066bed126b 100644 --- a/man/systemd.link.xml +++ b/man/systemd.link.xml @@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ how the device should be configured. The first (in lexical order) of the link files that matches a given device is applied. Note that a default file 99-default.link is - shipped by the system, any user-supplied + shipped by the system. Any user-supplied .link should hence have a lexically earlier name to be considered at all. @@ -332,6 +332,16 @@ NamePolicy= fail, or in case NamePolicy= is missing or disabled. + + Note that specifying a name that the kernel might use for another + interface (for example eth0) is dangerous because the + name assignment done by udev will race with the assignment done by the + kernel, and only one interface may use the name. Depending on the order of + operations, either udev or the kernel will win, making the naming + unpredictable. It is best to use some different prefix, for example + internal0/external0 or + lan0/lan1/lan3. +