"Reference : RFC 2863: The Interfaces Group MIB - ifAlias" . . . . . . "A textual description of the interface.\n\nA server implementation MAY map this leaf to the ifAlias\nMIB object. Such an implementation needs to use some\nmechanism to handle the differences in size and characters\nallowed between this leaf and ifAlias. The definition of\nsuch a mechanism is outside the scope of this document.\n\nSince ifAlias is defined to be stored in non-volatile\nstorage, the MIB implementation MUST map ifAlias to the\nvalue of 'description' in the persistently stored\ndatastore.\n\nSpecifically, if the device supports ':startup', when\nifAlias is read the device MUST return the value of\n'description' in the 'startup' datastore, and when it is\nwritten, it MUST be written to the 'running' and 'startup'\ndatastores. Note that it is up to the implementation to\n\ndecide whether to modify this single leaf in 'startup' or\nperform an implicit copy-config from 'running' to\n'startup'.\n\nIf the device does not support ':startup', ifAlias MUST\nbe mapped to the 'description' leaf in the 'running'\ndatastore." . . . .