How to change NIC alias?

[Rick Stevens]

On Thu, 2006-12-28 at 23:52 +0200, Maxim Veksler wrote:
> On 12/28/06, Kenneth Tindle <ktindle at uky.edu> wrote:
> > man nameif
> >
> > "name interface"
> > /sbin/nameif
> >
> 
> Doesn't redhat use udev already?
> If so it's quite simple (man udev)

It's not that the device isn't detected, it's that the system is
renaming it.  Often different kernels will scan the PCI bus differently
and the names will change.  I hit this with two kernels with minor rev
changes on a single Dell 2850.  Even the same kernel run on two slightly
different hardware platforms will cause issues.   A Dell 2850 scans the
motherboard first, then the PCI bus.  A Dell 1850 will scan the PCI bus
first, THEN the motherboard.  Sheesh!  Consistency, please!

The most reliable method to tie an interface name to a specific NIC is
to either create an /etc/mactab file with the entries in it, e.g.:

	eth0	aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff
	eth1	gg:hh:ii:jj:kk:ll

or add the "MACADDR=aa:bb:cc:dd:ee:ff" line to the ifcfg-ethX file
involved.  Of the two, I prefer the second one ("MACADDR=").  One less
thing to look at (if you have a problem with NIC naming, check the
network config files instead of something in /etc).  But then, I'm a
lazy cuss!  :-)
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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-   I haven't lost my mind.  It's backed up on tape somewhere, but   -
-                       probably not recoverable.                    -
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