What is the reason behind the renaming of NICs in Linux operating systems.
Practically everyone knows eth0 or wlan0 so why have they been renamed to some obscure code number.
Geffers
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DougieLawson
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Re: Why are NICs renamed
What OS are you running? Because Raspbian has eth0, wlan0, wlan1, usb0, etc. names.
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Re: Why are NICs renamed
I guess you're not using Raspbian?
This post has some explanation http://serverfault.com/questions/636621 ... no16777736
I had that on my Ubuntu laptop, but I changed some grub options and it's back to the normal names.
I think it just added "net.ifnames=0 biosdevname=0" to the kernel boot command line.
Not sure that is relevant to a Pi though, seeing as the Pi doesn't have a BIOS.
This post has some explanation http://serverfault.com/questions/636621 ... no16777736
I had that on my Ubuntu laptop, but I changed some grub options and it's back to the normal names.
I think it just added "net.ifnames=0 biosdevname=0" to the kernel boot command line.
Not sure that is relevant to a Pi though, seeing as the Pi doesn't have a BIOS.
Re: Why are NICs renamed
Ah yes, predictable names on Linux, I see a train wreck coming...
In the olden days, you wanted predictable names, you used udev and set your name. And often your MAC address if you wanted to.
Now (thank who, once again?) it's getting much more difficult to do that without generating conflicts, so we start getting those predictable names.
As it turns out, the only predictable name scheme that works on any platform is... "xMAC address".
Get ready to kiss MAC spoofing goodbye for good and live with atrocious device names, that have to be obfuscated if you want to communicate in public.
Let's hope Raspbian will find a way through this.
In the olden days, you wanted predictable names, you used udev and set your name. And often your MAC address if you wanted to.
Now (thank who, once again?) it's getting much more difficult to do that without generating conflicts, so we start getting those predictable names.
As it turns out, the only predictable name scheme that works on any platform is... "xMAC address".
Get ready to kiss MAC spoofing goodbye for good and live with atrocious device names, that have to be obfuscated if you want to communicate in public.
Let's hope Raspbian will find a way through this.
"S'il n'y a pas de solution, c'est qu'il n'y a pas de problème." Les Shadoks, J. Rouxel
Re: Why are NICs renamed
Ah folks, I have a number of systems including Raspian, a Pi Mate system as well as an Ubuntu laptop.
Thought it was a Linux or Debian thing and that Raspian would also change at some point.
Interesting rpdom, might explore that grub option.
Geffers
Thought it was a Linux or Debian thing and that Raspian would also change at some point.
Interesting rpdom, might explore that grub option.
Geffers
Re: Why are NICs renamed
It sounds like knowing just the name of the Ethernet device would uniquely identify the entire computer and consequently the owner.epoch1970 wrote:and live with atrocious device names, that have to be obfuscated if you want to communicate in public.
It has been claimed that Plan 9, which was developed by the same team who developed Unix, did not become popular because Unix was good enough. Note that Raspbian is a Unix-like operating system. Maybe current changes to Linux will change the balance between Plan 9 and Linux to the point where even Microsoft Windows appears simpler and less astonishing.
Re: Why are NICs renamed
The predictable names stuff on linux may annoy some users but I've also seen the other side where they're incredibly useful.
A few years ago I had to setup 4 identical firewall machines each with 8 network interfaces. Before predictable naming we had to spend most of the time in the setup working through the interfaces (by physically plugging them into something to see which link came up in the software) to determine which was which on each firewall. As part of the setup we had one firewall connected to another firewall using the same port on each, On one firewall that port might have been listed as eth2, on another it might have been listed as eth4. In that setup knowing that the first port on a specific network card will always be called P2p1 is highly useful.
I've also come accross similar issues when doing network builds of hosts where the build script has to include the network interface to use. These are generally generic configs used for a number of hosts and are designed to be hands off (important when you have to build several machines in a supportable way in a short space of time).
These are very much issues that face enterprises rather than home issues, but then enterprises often use the same (or similar) distributions to home users and make up a large proportion of the end users (and usually the majority of those paying for support).
A few years ago I had to setup 4 identical firewall machines each with 8 network interfaces. Before predictable naming we had to spend most of the time in the setup working through the interfaces (by physically plugging them into something to see which link came up in the software) to determine which was which on each firewall. As part of the setup we had one firewall connected to another firewall using the same port on each, On one firewall that port might have been listed as eth2, on another it might have been listed as eth4. In that setup knowing that the first port on a specific network card will always be called P2p1 is highly useful.
I've also come accross similar issues when doing network builds of hosts where the build script has to include the network interface to use. These are generally generic configs used for a number of hosts and are designed to be hands off (important when you have to build several machines in a supportable way in a short space of time).
These are very much issues that face enterprises rather than home issues, but then enterprises often use the same (or similar) distributions to home users and make up a large proportion of the end users (and usually the majority of those paying for support).