gentoo network interface with hyphen in the name

Using the OpenRC (i.e. init system) and network names with special symbols like hyphen in the name may lead to errors of “command not found” and “No such file or directory

The hyphen in the network interface name must be replaced in the configuration file with an underline and the init name file should be with the hyphen.

Proper configuration for network interface name with hyphen mv-eth0

  • In the configuration file /etc/conf.d/net:
    config_mv_eth0="
    192.168.0.202/24
    "
    routes_mv_eth0="
    default via 192.168.0.1
    "
    
  • The network interface init file is with hyphen:
    root@srv /etc/init.d # ln -s net.lo net.mv-eth0
    

And starting the network is successful:

root@srv ~ # /etc/init.d/net.mv-eth0 start
 * Caching service dependencies ...                                                                                                                                                     [ ok ]
 * Bringing up interface mv-eth0
 *   Caching network module dependencies
 *   192.168.0.202/24 ...                                                                                                                                                               [ ok ]
 *   Adding routes
 *     default via 192.168.0.1 ...                                                                                                                                                      [ ok ]
 *   Waiting for tentative IPv6 addresses to complete DAD (5 seconds) ..

Virtualization software may include to the network interface name not so typical alphabets. For example, systemd-nspawn will give name to the guest’s macvlan network with mv-{host_network_name} and iv-{host_network_name} for ipvlan.

Wrong configuration with a hyphen in the network interface name.

The configuration file /etc/conf.d/net:

config_mv-eth0="
192.168.0.202/24
"
routes_mv-eth0="
default via 192.168.0.1
"

Starting the network with such configuration will result in multiple errors:

root@srv ~ # /etc/init.d # /etc/init.d/net.mv-eth0 start
 * Caching service dependencies ...
/etc/init.d/../conf.d/net: line 3: config_mv-eth0=
192.168.0.202/24
: No such file or directory
/etc/init.d/../conf.d/net: line 6: $'routes_mv-eth0=\ndefault via 192.168.0.1\n': command not found
/etc/init.d/../conf.d/net: line 3: config_mv-eth0=
192.168.0.202/24
: No such file or directory
/etc/init.d/../conf.d/net: line 6: $'routes_mv-eth0=\ndefault via 192.168.0.1\n': command not found                                                                                  [ ok ]
/etc/init.d/../conf.d/net: line 3: config_mv-eth0=
192.168.0.202/24
: No such file or directory
/etc/init.d/../conf.d/net: line 6: $'routes_mv-eth0=\ndefault via 192.168.0.1\n': command not found
 * net.mv-eth0: error loading /etc/init.d/../conf.d/net
 * ERROR: net.mv-eth0 failed to start