OK, thanks, but I think we can use ip command line to rename existing NIC.
[root@rhel6 ~]# ip link set name jiahu eth1 [root@rhel6 ~]# ifconfig jiahu jiahu Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1B:21:27:4E:CE BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
[root@rhel6 ~]# ifup jiahu
Determining IP information for jiahu... done. Neat! That's probably using the same netlink command that's used to rename it at boot time. However, if you do what you suggest, the name change won't be persistent across a system reboot.
I still say this is too low level for netcf to be messing with; it was created to provide a standard way to manipulate the config files, not mess with the hardware. (Note that it's also possible to change the mac address of an ethernet device (ip link set $dev address $addr) , but we don't support that either, and have no plans to do so.) Good conclusion, thanks again, I agree with you.