hi.

I have a problem with interfaces after cloning a disk.

First i have a number of identical machines. (Dell 350)

I installed OpenSuse 10.0 (OSS).
Configured and working with the serices I need.

Take a ghost with symantec ghost v8.2 in raw mode.
(That way it handles ext3 fs without examning)

Clone another host with the ghost image.

The clone host boots up and works fine, except for the interface eth0.

It is suddenly named as eth2 and 3. (I have 2 if´s in every machine)

Question:

How do I get eth0 to be just eth0 ?
Where di I go wrong ?

Why ?
I need the if naming to be the same in every host due to extensive scripting.
That is I automate a lot in the hosts to adopt them to unik situastions after cloning.

Does anyone have any idé as to what might be a solution ?

Thanks. Helmsman.

Do you have anything in your ethernet configuration scripts that is tied to the ethernet MAC address? That is one of the only things found in most PC's that is guaranteed to be unique, and is sometimes used as the lookup key in DCHP assigned addresses. Sorry not to have a specific suggestion; just fishing in the area that seems to be germain to the problem.

--- rod.

Hello.

No, the only thing I have in my ethernet config script that suggest anything is "device=eth0".
That isn´t the same I know, it only says "this script is for eth0" not what interface that is.

I seem to remember have seeing something like: MAC=XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX.
in older config scripts, could that be what you are suggesting ?

In Suse as of ver 10 they name the config script after the mac-address of the relevant interface. (ifcfg-eth-id-xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx)
How is it solved if I can´t do that ?

If there is a way to do that it would solve my problem.

Do you (as I do) suspect that hotplug has something to do with it.
(actually the coldplug feature of hotplug)

Yours Helmsman.

Okay, I think that pretty much pinpoints the problem. Without having the scripts available to read, I'm thinking the problem arises something like this:

- init script reserves eth0 for an interface with MAC 'XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX'
- no such MAC hardware is found
- same problem with eth1,
- but, there is a hardware interface found, with a different MAC;
- so, a network configuration for eth2 is created
- repeat for eth3.

Without actually seeing the network setup scripts, I can't really guess at how to remedy things. Perhaps you can post them, or perhaps someone has already solved this problem, or has an intimate knowledge of the Suse networking setup system.

--- rod.

Hello, backagain.

Yes it's correct.
How do you avoid this ?
Well, SUSE uses udev to bind some modul to the specific hardware.
The trick therefore would be to tell udev *not* to do this.
After some searching i´ve found it. (see below)

You have to do two things:

First it´s a good idea to rename the interface(s) in yast to something else then "eth-MACaddress. (eth0, eth1....)
You don´t have to this but its common praxis.

Second, this you have to do, in file "/etc/sysconfig/network/config" set the variable "USE_PERSISTENT_NAMES=yes" to "USE_PERSISTENT_NAMES=no"

This results in SUSE *not* binding the interface to a specific hardware interface.
Thus ghost or clones will work as independent installations.

This is poorley documented.
Point of improvement, SUSE. (nudge, nudge) ;-)

I have tried this with Symantecs ghost, and cloning in VMWare 5.5 and 6.0 beta.
Works fine.
With VMWare don´t forget to run "/usr/bin/vmware-controls.pl" to install the daemon part of vmware tools. (improves functionality a lot)

Have a nice summer/Helmsman