How do I manually assign disk device names (sdb, sdc, sdd)?

English Hardware
#1

[LEFT]I am working with two new servers running OpenSUSE 10.3 that will form a virtual lab using VMWare server 1.0.7. Both machines have 7 (seven) SATA drives attached, 2 (two) on the built-in controller and 5 (five) on the add-in controller.

On server ONE, the two drives on the built-in controller are defined as sda and sdb. The five drives on the add-in controller are defined as sdc, sdd, sde, sdj and sdk.
On server TWO, the two drives on the built-in controller are defined as sda and sdb. The five drives on the add-in controller are defined as sdg, sdh, sdi, sdj and sdk.

Why are the 5 (five) drives on the add-in controller using different device names between the two machines (sdc-sdd-sde versus sdg-sdh-sdi)? More importantly, is there any way to manaully assign device names on these servers so that the device names for these drives match across these two servers?

Thanks. [/LEFT]

#2

This should get you down the right road you’ll have to susify it, but should be similar if not exactly.

Using udev to map multiple entries to a device - ArchWiki

#3

When you give volume labels to all your partitions, they then will be in /dev/disk/by-label. You can then use this in your /etc/fstab. Like

/dev/disk/by-label/Database /var/lib/mysql                ext3       defaults              1 2

This is all done by udev by default (on openSUSE at least), no need to make udev rules yourself.

#4

**Thanks to FeatherMonkey and hcw. **I was able to get the drives to come up the way I needed. The Wiki was just what I was looking for. I followed the manual method and added the necessary entries to the /etc/fstab.

Thanks so much for pointing me in the right direction.

Much love. You guys are the best!