[CentOS] Strange device labeling in 6.3

[Les Mikesell]

On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 1:47 PM,  <m.roth at 5-cent.us> wrote:
>
>>> I have just installed 6.3 on a machine that was previously running
>>> 5.8. Under 5.8 eth0 was eth0. Now with 6.3 /sbin/ifconfig gives me lo,
>>> wlan0 and p4p1 (instead of eth0).  I would like to make the ethernet a
>>> static IP as I intend to for this to be machine used on my LAN only.
>>> However, when I do /usr/sbin/setup -> Network Configuration the device
>>> is not listed.  Can anyone tell me why this is happening and how I can
>>> fix it. Or if not how I can set a static and persistent IP address for
>>> the ethernet?
>>
>> Well......
>>
>> I tend to agree with the slashdot commentator who called it
>> overcomplicated and unnecessary.   It's another idea from
>
> Yup. The difference between that, and sticking the MAC address into a
> simple, existing config file is, oh, that's right, it's k3wl.

The difference _should_ be that you could ship a pre-installed disk to
a remote site where it meets up with an freshly shipped server chassis
and the on-site person racking it up can know which NIC to put which
cable in and have it come up working.   But, I think that's only
possible with Dells.

>> Fedora, the theory, IIRC, was that this way, devices would always have the
>> same name, whereas under the method that has been used device names could
>> change on a reboot.  (Haven't experienced that myself, but dunno).
>
> I have. Putting the MAC address into ifcfg-eth? fixes it.

That assumes that you know the MAC address at the time you'd like to
configure the image. That's rare for me.  As are on-site people fluent
in linux.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
      lesmikesell at gmail.com