We're working with a virtual desktop product and on occasion the desktop comes up with eth0 first, and sometimes eth1 first.

I'm not sure why this is happening, but we need eth0 to be the interface that comes up fist because it's on the "real" network. eth1 is on the "internal" network the product uses to communicate. When it comes up first, the desktop cannot connect.

Is there a way to ensure eth0 comes up first?

Thanks.

I am assuming y'all are using RHEL can you provide the output of service network restart?

Sorry, I should have mentioned that first. We're using Centos 6.5. It's a virtual Linux box running in the Virtual Bridges software suite.

If the system recognizes eth1 first, 90% of the time it won't come up properly. Sometimes it does, it's weird. Since it's not up, I can't do a service network restart on it.

What do the logs say about why eth0 comes up second? If there's a reason, I will be in there. Look in var/log/messages and var/log/dmesg.

I'm looking at the /var/adm/messages file on two separate desktops. One started with eth0 first, the other with eh1 first. This is my first glance and I may find more things later, but here's what I'm seeing.

After the "modem-manager" lines where it loads plugins, I'm seeing "Network-Manager" lines. They look like this:

On the desktop that has eth1 coming up first:

<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: <info> monitoring kernel firmware directory '/lib/firmware'/
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: <info> Bonding/Bridging/VLAN support disabled
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: Acquired D-Bus service com.redhat.ifcfgrh1
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: <info> Loaded plugin ifcfg-rh: (c) 2007 - 2008 Red Hat, Inc.
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: <info> Loaded plugin keyfile: (c) 2007 - 2008 Red Hat, Inc.
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: parsing /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 ...
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: warning: NM_CONTROLLED was false but HWADDR or SUBCHANNELS was missing; ...
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: read connection 'System eth1'
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: parsing /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-lo ...
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: parsing /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 ...
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: warning: NM_CONTROLLED was false but HWADDR or SUBCHANNELS was missing; ...
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: read connection 'System eth1'
...

On the desktop that haseth0 coming up first:

<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: <info> monitoring kernel firmware directory '/lib/firmware'/
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: <info> Bonding/Bridging/VLAN support disabled
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: Acquired D-Bus service com.redhat.ifcfgrh1
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: <info> Loaded plugin ifcfg-rh: (c) 2007 - 2008 Red Hat, Inc.
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: <info> Loaded plugin keyfile: (c) 2007 - 2008 Red Hat, Inc.
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: parsing /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-lo ...
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: parsing /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 ...
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: warning: NM_CONTROLLED was false but HWADDR or SUBCHANNELS was missing; ...
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: read connection 'System eth1'
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: parsing /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth1 ...
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: warning: NM_CONTROLLED was false but HWADDR or SUBCHANNELS was missing; ...
<date> <time> <workstation> NetworkManager[<pid>]: ifcfg-rh: read connection 'System eth1'
...

Let's start with stopping NetworkManager, and putting normal ifcfg files in place with NM_CONTROLLED=no in them.

I'd suggest a reboot after that, but you can just restart the network a few times if you get weird behavior.

Don't forget to chkconfig NetworkManage OFF...

We can't stop NM unfortunately because it controls the dynamic network assignments which are coming in from the DHCP server. We've tried shutting it of and at that point the virtual desktop won't launch at all.

I'm pretty sure you don't need NM for dhcp...

Maybe not, but for whatever reason if we turn off NM and try to launch a gold image, it fails every time.

'Try to launch a gold image' <-- What does this mean?

If your ifconfig files are set up correctly, you should be able to fully disable NetworkManager and restart the network (preferably after a reboot), with DHCP. If that is not working out for whatever reason, perhaps you should investigate that, since I think it would either un-complicate troubleshooting and/or resolve the issue.