Comment 15 for bug 1743200

As a clarification on this topic:

We will be implementing ip address labels, as defined by iproute2's "ip address [...] label eth0:XXX" command (man ip-address). Not to be confused with ifconfig's legacy method of using aliased or virtual interfaces, which behave almost like a real interface.

The newer 'ip' utility does not use the legacy concept of alias interfaces. However, it supports assigning arbitrary names to the interfaces, called 'labels'. Both methods have in common that they allow to assign multiple IP addresses to an interface, which can be referenced by name.