NICs Always Consistently Mapped to the Same Network Configuration

bzo · 01-20-2011, 01:04 PM

Hey Guys,

I have three 10Gb Fibre PCI ethernet cards and 2 onboard gigabit ports. The two gigabit ports always seem to be mapped to eth0 and eth1. I set the network configuration for eth2, eth3, and eth4 in the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth# files.

Would the NIC in PCI slot 1 always be mapped to eth2, NIC in slot 2 mapped to eth3, and NIC in slot 3 always mapped to eth4?

Thanks!

anomie · 01-20-2011, 01:25 PM

Based on the file path to your NIC configuration, I assume you're talking about RHEL? Right? (It's a good idea to post your OS / version with a question like this.)

Yes, your physical NIC port should always map to the same logical ethn device. BUT, if you put a new PCI ethernet card in, there is the possibility that NIC port -> ethn device mappings will change. You mitigate this risk by providing a MAC address in your ifcfg-ethn config, which RHEL does by default at OS install time.