[CentOS] multiple ifcfg-x locations on CentOS-6

[Nicolas Thierry-Mieg]

James B. Byrne wrote:
> $ 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

               ^
look at that 2 there

> My questions are:  What are these duplicate, and
> identical, files doing in multiple places on my system;

those are hard-linked, most likely the same file in both subdirs (not 
identical files, a single file hard-linked twice)

the /etc/sysconfig/networking/* subdirs can exist on C5 as well, I think 
they're used by system-config-network


> and why are they evidently interfering with the normal
> processing of /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts through the
> service utility?

on a C6 machine I have those dirs are empty, as on your C5 system. I 
probably never used system-config-network on it. Networking through 
/etc/init.d/network functions fine without them.