Upgrade my kernel and eth0 now calls itself eth1 and there's ONLY ONE CARD INSTALLED!

CJ Chitwood · 06-11-2007, 04:45 AM

I have only one network card installed in this machine. From /bin/lspci:

0000:00:08.0 Ethernet controller: Linksys NC100 Network Everywhere Fast Ethernet 10/100 (rev 11)

Originally, this was, and always has been, eth0.

So, I was running Linux kernel 2.6.8-2-386 (supplied by Debian (3.1r4 IIRC)) and wanted to upgrade to a newer one more optimized to the system I've built for a friend. I first chose 2.6.19.1, and now am on 2.6.21.3, and both of these "new" kernels exhibit this same behaviour. The behaviour in question is that the network card is now eth1. I can't fathom why. When I ifup eth0, I get the following:

Code:

[farley][pts/0]
[YOU ARE ROOT!]
[/home/bri]# ifup eth0
Internet Software Consortium DHCP Client 2.0pl5
Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 The Internet Software Consortium.
All rights reserved.

Please contribute if you find this software useful.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/dhcp-contrib.html

eth0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
Starting the Firestarter firewall: eth0: error fetching interface information: Device not found
eth0: error fetching interface information: Device not found
eth0: error fetching interface information: Device not found
failed.
Bind socket to interface: No such device
exiting.
Failed to bring up eth0.

[farley][pts/0]
[YOU ARE ROOT!]
[/home/bri]#

It's a tulip card. I get the same behaviour whether tulip is a separate module or built-in to the kernel.

I really wouldn't care, as long as I could be assured it would *ALWAYS* be eth1 now (the friend isn't computer, and definitely not linux, savvy, and lives a little far away for me to reliably deal with network issues. I can ssh/vpn other issues, but network HAS to be SOLID). However, I have seen several times in the past where my linux setups have decided to change, seemingly on their own (probably automatic updates or whatever), and made the box unusable, so I can't trust this "new" setup.

I understand that kernel will call whichever module loads first "eth0", but there is only one card in this box, so it should always be eth0, yes?

I've

where I could, but what I keep finding is how to change designations in multiple-card boxes, if I find anything at all. Maybe I'm not as google-proficient as I thought.

Any advice

On another note, I have an ATI All-in-Wonder Pro AGP card, and an Aztech FM Radio card in this box, both of which work fine using very specialized tools, but not with Video4Linux. Should that be a hardware question or a V4L Software question?

Many thanks in advance!

has helped me out a lot!

Emerson · 06-11-2007, 03:43 PM

This is udev playing tricks on you. The file to edit is /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules (in my Gentoo system).

HappyTux · 06-11-2007, 09:27 PM

Another thing you might want to check for is the firewire (1394) eth device being loaded that seems to be a popular thing to be doing now screwing up the setups you have, putting the module name in the udev/hotplug blacklist should prevent it from loading.

CJ Chitwood · 06-11-2007, 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Emerson

This is udev playing tricks on you. The file to edit is /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules (in my Gentoo system).

Looks like Debian isn't too far off this mark:

/etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules

Code:

[farley][pts/1]
[YOU ARE ROOT!]
[/etc/udev/rules.d]# cat z25_persistent-net.rules 
# This file was automatically generated by the /lib/udev/write_net_rules
# program, probably run by the persistent-net-generator.rules rules file.
#
# You can modify it, as long as you keep each rule on a single line.
# MAC addresses must be written in lowercase.

SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="00:00:94:b7:39:9d", NAME="eth0"

# PCI device 0x1317:0x0985 (tulip)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="00:04:5a:5f:47:16", NAME="eth1"

[farley][pts/1]
[YOU ARE ROOT!]
[/etc/udev/rules.d]#

Commented out the first "SUBSYSTEM" line, edited the "eth1" to read "eth0", and rebooted. Thing is, I don't know what that first one's MAC was. It's certainly not in the machine now. Anywhoo, it's working fine now.

Regarding the firewire, there's no firewire card in the machine, and firewire is not built-in nor a module. Should I still worry about that?

Many thanks!

CJ