Interface Alternative Names

New feature in nmstate 2.2.51.

Interface alternative name is a kernel property of network interface which is treat equally as interface kernel name in netlink protocol.

Unlike kernel interface name limitation on 15 characters, alternative name length limitation is 255(might change in the future by kernel team).

Like kernel interface name, alternative name should unique among all interface names and all alternative names. Nmstate will raise error otherwise.

Nmstate does not override existing alternative names, you can only append and remove explicitly.

Example YAML for adding alternative names:

---
interfaces:
  - name: enp7s0
    alt-names:
      - name: port1
      - name: veryveryveryverylonglonglongname

Example YAML for removing alternative names:

---
interfaces:
  - name: enp7s0
    alt-names:
      - name: port1
        state: absent
      - name: veryveryveryverylonglonglongname
        state: absent

Since nmstate 2.2.58, you may refer alt-name as interface name:

---
interfaces:
  - name: veryveryveryverylonglonglongname
    tyep: ethernet
    state: up
    ipv4:
      enabled: false

Since nmstate 2.2.58, you may refer alt-name as route next-hop-interface:

---
routes:
  config:
  - destination: 198.51.100.0/24
    metric: 150
    next-hop-address: 192.0.2.1
    next-hop-interface: veryveryveryverylonglonglongname
    table-id: 254

Since nmstate 2.2.58, you may refer alt-name as bond/linux-bridge/ovs-bridge/vrf port. Example on linux bridge:

---
interfaces:
  - name: br0
    type: linux-bridge
    state: up
    bridge:
      port:
        - name: veryveryveryverylonglonglongname
      options:
        stp:
          enabled: false

Since nmstate 2.2.58, you may refer alt-name as base-iface of VLAN/VxLAN/MacSec/MacVlan:

---
interfaces:
  - name: vlan101
    type: vlan
    state: up
    vlan:
      base-iface: veryveryveryverylonglonglongname
      id: 101