Hiding a network interface.

[Styma, Robert E (Robert)]

For reasons which are long and complicated, I need
to hide a NIC interface.  The test machine is a
box with 2 Nic interfaces on the motherboard and
a strange PCI card with 2 more interfaces.  They
appear as eth0, eth1, eth2, and eth3.  I need
to make eth3 not be there. (Not allowed to use
a soldering iron :-)  ).

On Solaris I can use "ifconfig unplumb eth3" and
the device is gone.  ifconfig no longer shows it.

Is there a way to do this in Fedora/linux.  I thought
about modules.conf, but that would get rid of both
nic interfaces since they use the same driver.

Thank you for any suggestions.

Bob Styma
Phoenix, Az.

PS:  No, I cannot go get a NIC card with only one
interface.  I have to do this the way the hardware
is set up.