Use of ifconfig in initscripts doesn't work with IB

Issue

The manpage for ifconfig shows there is a bug with the fact that ifconfig uses the ioctl access method to get full hw adddresses but is limited to 8 bytes.
The command ifup-ib whines when trying to bring up ipoib.

# ifup ib0
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-ib: line 73: [: too many arguments

Ifconfig uses the ioctl access method to get the full address information,
which limits hardware addresses to 8 bytes.
Because Infiniband address has 20 bytes, only the first 8 bytes are displayed
correctly.
Ifconfig is obsolete! For replacement check ip.