Fedora 16 ethernet port naming "secrets" p1* to eth*

[scott9harvey0l]

I wanted to share how to force a system running fc14 to fc16 and hopefully later can be made
to use eth0 eth1 eth2 etc.. rather than the pci hardware probe names.

1.) Edit lib/udev/rules.d/71-biosdevname.rules
Change
--- This is around line 26 comment out the the first program statement and
--- Define the program statement as shown.
# using NAME= instead of setting INTERFACE_NAME, so that persistent
# names aren't generated for these devices, they are "named" on each boot.
#PROGRAM="/sbin/biosdevname --policy physical -i %k", NAME="%c", OPTIONS+="string_escape=replace"
PROGRAM="/sbin/biosdevname --policy=all_ethN -i %k", ENV{INTERFACE_NAME}="%c"

LABEL="netdevicename_end"

2.) Reboot by making the change to the 71-biosdevname.rules a file will be written
/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules.
if you have more than one Ethernet port you will want look at the this file and see if the
mac address of then Ethernet port matches what you want the eth* naming you want.
In my case I have 3 ports on my system. I wanted to built in port to be eth0 and the Intel card to
be eth1 and eth2. The ATTR{address}== is the MAC address or hardware address
for the port. Note these are single line entries follow the instruction in the file.

# PCI device 0x10ec:0x8168 (r8169) (custom name provided by external tool)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="80:ee:73:12:6c:38", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"

# PCI device 0x8086:0x10c9 (igb) (custom name provided by external tool)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="90:e2:ba:02:25:71", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth1"

# PCI device 0x8086:0x10c9 (igb) (custom name provided by external tool)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="90:e2:ba:02:25:70", ATTR{dev_id}=="0x0", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth2"

After you have rebooted after the changes in 1 and 2 you will want to go to the ifcfg-<namesYou-didnotwant>
in
[root@netserver02 ~]# ls -l /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-*
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 427 Mar 4 18:02 /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 368 Mar 4 18:02 /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 405 Mar 4 18:03 /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth2
Edit each one of the ifcfg-eth* files and change
the NAME and DEVICE field to correct eth0 eth1 and eth2
NAME="eth0"
DEVICE=eth0

3.) Reboot now the network manager will match the the changes you have made.

The best reference that help me was it seems to be a little out of date but was helpful.
linux.dell.com/files/whitepapers/nic-enum-whitepaper-v4.pdf
Also there are references to script that will make the changes for you. Although they did
not work for me.


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[malk315]

Any idea how to do this on Fedora 17 ???

Did a fresh install and there's no 70persistent-net.rules file.
Setting biosdevname=0 on kernel cmdline yields ethX devices like you want, but then there's no 70persistent-net.rules file to the user can use a MAC address to force a particular ethX which is what I'd like to do.

My thread about the woes I'm having with F17 is here:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?p=1590122

Any info appreciated.

[smr54]

I do a minimal install and don't even put the biosdevname in, because when I have done so in the past, it sometimes created something that it wanted to use called wired_1, or similar.

Once installed, I edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-whatever.

I change the whatever to eth0
I rename the file from ifcfg-whatever to ifcfg-eth0

I remove biosdevname

rpm -e biosdevname

Reboot, and all should be well.

[malk315]

That's a great tip -- thanks for sharing.

I solved my problem and if you look at my other thread listed above, you'll see my solution.
I'm going to go updated that thread now with what I did to take care of my concerns with my Fedora 17 install w/ 6 x enet interfaces!

[scott9harvey0l]

I like this solution looks very simple. You just removed the biosdevname package
and the system still works afterwords.

Originally Posted by smr54

I do a minimal install and don't even put the biosdevname in, because when I have done so in the past, it sometimes created something that it wanted to use called wired_1, or similar.

Once installed, I edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-whatever.

I change the whatever to eth0
I rename the file from ifcfg-whatever to ifcfg-eth0

I remove biosdevname

rpm -e biosdevname

Reboot, and all should be well.

[smr54]

That is correct. It required a reboot, though I didn't try hard to avoid said reboot.