Article

Applies to:

• SUSE Linux 10.0
• SUSE Linux Professional 9.2-9.3

PROBLEM: Multiple network cards will be assigned to either eth0 or eth1 during initialization, creating havoc with scripts and applications (such as VMware).

SOLUTION: The network cards are named eth0 or eth1 by the ifplugd service as they are initialized. This service will use eth0 and eth1 alternatively if the NICs both have a priority of >0, which is the default setting. This behaviour can be overridden by changing the ifplugd priority of one of the interfaces to 0.

Change to etc/sysconfig/network, and locate the interface configuration file of the the NIC that you want to always be known as eth0. The configuration files start with "ifcfg-eth-..." for a cable NIC, or "ifcfg-wlan-..." for a wireless NIC.

Now add the following line to the appropriate file:

IFPLUGD_PRIORITY='0'

This setting will force ifplugd to always name that card eth0.