Random (?) assigment of device eth0/eth1 to NIC's

Hi!

I've had a really irritating problem ever since I installed SuSE 9.3 on my
Dell laptop.

The problem is that the laptop has both a wired and a wireless ethernet
adapter. When I boot the machine, the wired one is almost always assigned
the device eth0 and the wireless is assigned eth1. But only almost always.
Sometimes it is the other way around. The wireless is set to manual start
since I don't use it very often.

Because vmware's bridged network is configured to use eth0, I sometimes
won't be able to use it. The only solution I have found is to reboot the
machine, which reminds me all too much of the old Windows days!

Is there some way I can tell SuSE to always use eth0 for the wired and
always eth1 for the wireless?

Please help!

TIA,
Gunnar

Gunnar Grim adjusted his/her tinfoil beanie to post:

> Hi!
>
> I've had a really irritating problem ever since I installed SuSE 9.3
> on my Dell laptop.
>
> The problem is that the laptop has both a wired and a wireless
> ethernet adapter. When I boot the machine, the wired one is almost
> always assigned the device eth0 and the wireless is assigned eth1. But
> only almost always. Sometimes it is the other way around. The wireless
> is set to manual start since I don't use it very often.
>
> Because vmware's bridged network is configured to use eth0, I
> sometimes won't be able to use it. The only solution I have found is
> to reboot the machine, which reminds me all too much of the old
> Windows days!
>
> Is there some way I can tell SuSE to always use eth0 for the wired and
> always eth1 for the wireless?
>
> Please help!
>
> TIA,
> Gunnar

Gunnar,

Have a look here:

http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:SUSE_Linu...nterface_Names


Which points you also to:

/usr/share/doc/packages/sysconfig/README.Persistent_Interface_Names

HTH
--
Mark
Twixt hill and high water
N. Wales, UK
Novell Support Forums SysOp

baskitcaise wrote:

> Have a look here:
>
>
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:SUSE_Linu...nterface_Names
>

Thanks, followed the path to the HOTPLUG_PCI_QUEUE_NIC_EVENTS setting which
hinted me to use PERSISTENT_NAME in the device config files so I've tried
that. It will probably be a while before I know if it works since the
problem is pretty infrequent.

>
> Which points you also to:
>
> /usr/share/doc/packages/sysconfig/README.Persistent_Interface_Names

Don't have one. New with 10 perhaps?

Thanks again,
Gunnar

Gunnar Grim adjusted his/her tinfoil beanie to post:

>> Which points you also to:
>>
>> /usr/share/doc/packages/sysconfig/README.Persistent_Interface_Names
>
> Don't have one. New with 10 perhaps?
>
> Thanks again,
> Gunnar

Doh!!! just me getting over enthusiastic with the info Gunnar, I know
you are on 9.3 but did not check if that was there in that version.

Yep it is new for 10.0


--
Mark
Twixt hill and high water
N. Wales, UK
Novell Support Forums SysOp

Sorry to say that the problem persists. I have done the following:

Put PERSISTENT_NAME='eth0' in the /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-eth-id-xxx
file for the wired NIC.

Put PERSISTENT_NAME='eth1' in the /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-eth-id-xxx
file for the wireless NIC.

This didn't work. Doing a network restart prints "cannot change name of eth0
to eth1: File exists".

Then I tried changing the HOTPLUG_PCI_QUEUE_NIC_EVENTS setting from "yes" to
"wait". No effect.

I have also tried removing the wireless adapter from the network
configuration. Now the wired one starts as eth1 and I don't get an eth1 at
all!

It doesn't seem random anymore. It seems like SuSE is really trying to read
my mind and figure out what I want and then do the exact opposite thing! My
cat does that a lot BTW.

Please help!

TIA,
Gunnar

Gunnar Grim wrote:

> Sorry to say that the problem persists. I have done the following:
>
> Put PERSISTENT_NAME='eth0' in the
> /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-eth-id-xxx file for the wired NIC.
>
> Put PERSISTENT_NAME='eth1' in the
> /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-eth-id-xxx file for the wireless NIC.
>
> This didn't work. Doing a network restart prints "cannot change name
> of eth0 to eth1: File exists".

I don't think you can can use persistent name of the ethX format.

Try nicX, it works for me.

I still consider the way Novell does this as being broken.


B

--
http://www.mailtrap.org.uk/