Bug 42865

Summary:	Network Interface: "dummy" vs. "dummy0" - Documentation issue?
Product:	Drivers	Reporter:	software+linux-kernel
Component:	Network	Assignee:	Alan (alan)
Status:	CLOSED CODE_FIX
Severity:	enhancement	CC:	alan, florian
Priority:	P1
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Kernel Version:	3.4-rc7	Subsystem:
Regression:	No	Bisected commit-id:

Description software+linux-kernel 2012-03-05 03:38:14 UTC

At one time (v2.4 kernels?) when the "dummy" network interface was compiled directly into the kernel (as opposed to being a kernel module), its name was simply "dummy".  When loaded as a module, it was "dummy0", etc....  However, this seems to have been changed (always now "dummy0") - but the DOCUMENTATION in the configuration help still says that:

"To compile this driver as a module, choose M here: the module will be called dummy.  If you want to use more than one dummy device at a time, you need to compile this driver as a module.  Instead of 'dummy', the devices will then be called 'dummy0', 'dummy1' etc."

If this is no longer the case (always "dummy0"), then the documentation (at drivers/net/Kconfig, "config DUMMY" - line 55 ff.) needs to be changed.

Otherwise, the name passed in drivers/net/dummy.c, dummy_init_one() needs to be changed (remove the "%d" suffix at line 167 if NOT a module).

The documentation should be consistent with the actual configuration behavior.  It is not.  I do not presume to propose which should be changed.  I note only the inconsistency.

Comment 1 Alan 2012-05-12 02:08:31 UTC

Will take a look

Comment 2 Alan 2012-05-14 13:58:49 UTC

Patch sent: 6c15a689e14ae724d7302f98b78ecd8f5adee718

Comment 3 Alan 2012-05-16 11:33:05 UTC

Fix queued

Comment 4 software+linux-kernel 2012-05-23 22:10:31 UTC

I downloaded kernel 3.4 today and I didn't see any change in either the documentation or in driver/net/dummy.c where the interface name appears.

As the patch wasn't included here, can I see it?  Was the patch actually committed?

Comment 5 Florian Mickler 2012-07-01 09:38:29 UTC

A patch referencing this bug report has been merged in Linux v3.5-rc1:

commit 9f486619f4545a8e36fa0fcae60722cb9e075887
Author: Alan Cox <alan@linux.intel.com>
Date:   Mon May 14 03:57:31 2012 +0000

    dummy: documentation is stale