Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 8 Sep 2006 11:18:17 -0500 | From | Matt Domsch <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH 2.6.18-rc5] PCI: sort device lists breadth-first |
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On Fri, Sep 08, 2006 at 11:56:39AM -0400, Dave Jones wrote: > On Thu, Sep 07, 2006 at 10:14:22PM -0500, Matt Domsch wrote: > > Problem: > > New Dell PowerEdge servers have 2 embedded ethernet ports, which are > > labeled NIC1 and NIC2 on the chassis, in the BIOS setup screens, and > > in the printed documentation. Assuming no other add-in ethernet ports > > in the system, Linux 2.4 kernels name these eth0 and eth1 > > respectively. Many people have come to expect this naming. Linux 2.6 > > kernels name these eth1 and eth0 respectively (backwards from > > expectations). I also have reports that various Sun and HP servers > > have similar behavior. > > This came up years back when 2.6 was something new, and the answer > then was 'bind the interface to the MAC address'.
Both Red Hat-based distros and openSuSE-based distros do something like this with configuration files automatically. Red Hat's anaconda/kudzu puts the HWADDR lines in the generated /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-* files. openSuSE's udev rules puts lines in /etc/udev/rules.d/30-net_persistent_names.rules the first time it discovers a new interface. Both methods are intended to maintain a persistent name for each NIC, after being set up the first time. Neither deals well with replacing one NIC with another - you must edit the config files.
This works pretty well post-install. It doesn't work well at install time, all the installers use the kernel's original names, and then those names become the persistent names in the config files.
> Whilst your patch will fix the case that's currently broken (2.4->2.6), > doesn't it offer equal possibility to break existing setups when people move > from <=2.6.18 -> 2.6.19 ?
If they're using config files / udev rules as suggested, it shouldn't break them.
If they're not, then yes, this could. Debian's /etc/network/interfaces file allows use of hwaddr fields, though by default it doesn't appear anything sets it up.
I'm open to suggestions on how *not* to break setups that don't use the MAC addresses.
Thanks, Matt
-- Matt Domsch Software Architect Dell Linux Solutions linux.dell.com & www.dell.com/linux Linux on Dell mailing lists @ http://lists.us.dell.com - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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