systemd and NIC name convention ?

czezz · 11-22-2016, 02:18 AM

I recently tried 2 distros to get used to systemd. CentOS 7.1 and Xubuntu 16.04.
One of significant changes that I noticed is network interface names.

Instead of ethX its now enpXsY
At least by default its like that.
What is the logic behind that and is that because of systemd or maybe some other reason?

Emerson · 11-22-2016, 02:40 AM

Search net for 'predictable network device names'. BTW, USB dongle gets a different name every time you plug it into a different port. Now, that's predictable!

jefro · 11-22-2016, 05:51 PM

The logic is that you will now have a way to boot up and identify exactly where a particular NIC is located at. This really comes from server room work to try to assist users making many connections on servers. I suspect that all distro's will do this soon as default.

hazel · 12-03-2016, 01:42 PM

If you really don't like the new names, add net.ifnames=0 to the kernel command line.

sundialsvcs · 12-05-2016, 10:03 AM

If you've ever been, or seen, a "wire guy" who's got a sheet of paper which says what eth1 is supposed to be on this machine versus that one, you'll appreciate any attempt at consistency. Anything that tries to give the name some contextual meaning.

Look at the back-plane of any "rack." There are Cat-5 cables everwhere!

c0wb0y · 12-05-2016, 12:01 PM

I like the new naming scheme.