CentOS-5 $ ll /etc/sysconfig/networking/profiles/* total 0 $ ll /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices total 0
CentOS-6 $ ll /sysconfig/networking/profiles total 4 drwxr-xr-x. 2 root root 4096 Oct 7 15:19 default $ ll /sysconfig/networking/profiles/* total 24 -rw-r--r--. 2 root root 158 Oct 7 15:19 hosts -rw-r--r--. 2 root root 116 Oct 7 15:19 ifcfg-br0 -rw-r--r--. 2 root root 238 Oct 7 15:24 ifcfg-eth0 -rw-r--r--. 2 root root 117 Oct 7 15:19 ifcfg-eth1 -rw-r--r--. 2 root root 40 Oct 7 15:19 network -rw-r--r--. 2 root root 120 Oct 7 15:25 resolv.conf
$ ll /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices total 12 -rw-r--r--. 2 root root 116 Oct 7 15:19 ifcfg-br0 -rw-r--r--. 2 root root 238 Oct 7 15:24 ifcfg-eth0 -rw-r--r--. 2 root root 117 Oct 7 15:19 ifcfg-eth1
I spent the better part of two hours trying to discover why I could not configure br0 to start after modifying /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts following my previously succesful notes. I finally deleted ifcfg-bro and used the existing ifcfg-eth0 and -eth1 scripts to at least get a network connection working. When I start the network service I only saw l0 and eth0 start as eth1 is disabled. However, when I did an ifconfig I saw that br0 is configured as well, but not by me.
Looking for br0 in the file system led me to the directories listed above. I do not recall seeing these before and the only difference between this CentOS box and the previous virtual host I installed is that this time I selected the virtual host install option instead of minimal install. Evidently this was a misstep on my part. One that I doubt I shall repeat.
My questions are: What are these duplicate, and identical, files doing in multiple places on my system; and why are they evidently interfering with the normal processing of /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts through the service utility?