can't "ifdown" USB-based network interface

["Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday crashcourse ca>]

  testing a new USB network interface adapter on my laptop so i first
took down the regular wired interface:

  # ifdown eth0

disconnected the network cable, plugged it into the adapter and
plugged the adapter into one of the ports on my linksys compact 4-port
hub, at which point eth1 came up nicely:

  # ifconfig eth1
  eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:60:6E:00:DE:F0
            inet addr:192.168.1.217  Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
            inet6 addr: fe80::260:6eff:fe00:def0/64 Scope:Link
            UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
            RX packets:3 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
            TX packets:9 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
            collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
            RX bytes:702 (702.0 b)  TX bytes:1212 (1.1 KiB)
  #

whereupon i went to take it down again, only to get:

  # ifdown eth1
  usage: ifdown <device name>
  #

on the other hand, ifconfig works just fine:

  # ifconfig eth1 down

apparently, neither ifup nor ifdown work on the USB net interface
(they work fine for the regular eth0), but the full incantation of
"ifconfig up" and "ifconfig down" work just fine.  is this anything to
care about?

rday
--

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Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

        Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry.

Web page:                                          http://crashcourse.ca
Linked In:                             http://www.linkedin.com/in/rpjday
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