libnetdevname - userspace library for mapping kernel name of a network 
interface to it's firmware provided alias and vice versa 
(c) 2009 Dell Inc. by Narendra K <narendra_k@dell.com>
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  What is libnetdevname?

Libnetdevname is a library that provides an API to map the kernel name
(ethN names) of a network interface device to it's firmware provided
alias name and vice versa. For ex:

cat /sys/class/net/eth1/device/label
Embedded NIC 1

Given ethN, the library would provide "Embedded NIC N" and given
"Embedded NIC N", library would provide the corresponding "ethN"
name. The library achieves this by looking up the sysfs for the above
mentioned path and performs

  Why libnetdevname?

This is aimed at solving the NIC enumeration issue where add-in NICs
get enumerated before LOMs which creates issues.

For details, go to: 
http://linux.dell.com/wiki/index.php/Oss/libnetdevname

  Requirements for libnetdevname

1. You will require to patch the Linux kernel for it to create
   the sysfs attribute file "label" at the path

   /sys/class/net/ethN/device/label
   
   http://marc.info/?l=linux-netdev&m=128014182019492&w=2


  How can I use libnetdevname in my application?

Userspace utilities that traditionally use ethN names, can be patched to
resolve the alias names to the device names by issuing a call to this library
like this:
	
	char *alias;
	char ifname[IFNAMSIZ];

	if (!netdev_alias_to_kernelname(alias, ifname)) 
		printf("alias -> %s kernel name -> %s". alias, kernelname);

	where 
	
	* char *alias -> is a pointer to the firmware provided alias names
	such as "Embedded NIC N"
	
	* char *kenelname -> is a pointer to a place holder which contains
	the corresponding "ethN" name of the interface, returned by the
	library which can be used for further transactions such as ioctls


  Example usage of ifconfig

# /sbin/ifconfig Embedded NIC 1
# /usr/sbin/ethtool -p Embedded NIC 2