net: network device name ifalias support

This patch add support for keeping an additional character alias
associated with an network interface. This is useful for maintaining
the SNMP ifAlias value which is a user defined value. Routers use this
to hold information like which circuit or line it is connected to. It
is just an arbitrary text label on the network device.

There are two exposed interfaces with this patch, the value can be
read/written either via netlink or sysfs.

This could be maintained just by the snmp daemon, but it is more
generally useful for other management tools, and the kernel is good
place to act as an agreed upon interface to store it.

Signed-off-by: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@vyatta.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>

1 files changed, 36 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/net/core/net-sysfs.c b/net/core/net-sysfs.c
index c1f4e0d428c0..92d6b9467314 100644
--- a/net/core/net-sysfs.c
+++ b/net/core/net-sysfs.c
@@ -209,9 +209,44 @@ static ssize_t store_tx_queue_len(struct device *dev,
 	return netdev_store(dev, attr, buf, len, change_tx_queue_len);
 }
 
+static ssize_t store_ifalias(struct device *dev, struct device_attribute *attr,
+			     const char *buf, size_t len)
+{
+	struct net_device *netdev = to_net_dev(dev);
+	size_t count = len;
+	ssize_t ret;
+
+	if (!capable(CAP_NET_ADMIN))
+		return -EPERM;
+
+	/* ignore trailing newline */
+	if (len >  0 && buf[len - 1] == '\n')
+		--count;
+
+	rtnl_lock();
+	ret = dev_set_alias(netdev, buf, count);
+	rtnl_unlock();
+
+	return ret < 0 ? ret : len;
+}
+
+static ssize_t show_ifalias(struct device *dev,
+			    struct device_attribute *attr, char *buf)
+{
+	const struct net_device *netdev = to_net_dev(dev);
+	ssize_t ret = 0;
+
+	rtnl_lock();
+	if (netdev->ifalias)
+		ret = sprintf(buf, "%s\n", netdev->ifalias);
+	rtnl_unlock();
+	return ret;
+}
+
 static struct device_attribute net_class_attributes[] = {
 	__ATTR(addr_len, S_IRUGO, show_addr_len, NULL),
 	__ATTR(dev_id, S_IRUGO, show_dev_id, NULL),
+	__ATTR(ifalias, S_IRUGO | S_IWUSR, show_ifalias, store_ifalias),
 	__ATTR(iflink, S_IRUGO, show_iflink, NULL),
 	__ATTR(ifindex, S_IRUGO, show_ifindex, NULL),
 	__ATTR(features, S_IRUGO, show_features, NULL),
@@ -418,6 +453,7 @@ static void netdev_release(struct device *d)
 
 	BUG_ON(dev->reg_state != NETREG_RELEASED);
 
+	kfree(dev->ifalias);
 	kfree((char *)dev - dev->padded);
 }