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.
Will take a look
Patch sent: 6c15a689e14ae724d7302f98b78ecd8f5adee718
Fix queued
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?
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