Bug 1003884

Summary:	systemd is not able create predictable MAC-based ethX network interface names
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Frantisek Hanzlik <franta>
Component:	systemd	Assignee:	systemd-maint
Status:	CLOSED CANTFIX	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	unspecified	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	19	CC:	johannbg, lnykryn, msekleta, plautrba, systemd-maint, vpavlin, zbyszek
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Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
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Last Closed:	2013-09-10 14:58:44 UTC	Type:	Bug
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oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Frantisek Hanzlik 2013-09-03 12:26:32 UTC

Description of problem:
It seems as F19 induced restriction in creating MAC (HW ether addr) based netvork interfaces for kernel native names ethN - it is relatively simple to create predictable MAC-based netvork interface with some other names (e.g. netX),
but creating predictable MAC-based ethX netvork interface names isn't possible - at least with new systemd/udev interface.
'net.ifnames=0'/'NULL /etc/udev/rules.d/80-net-name-slot.rules' is solution for machine with only one interface, thus unacceptable.

This should be _bug_, as these names are here ~20 years (whole time the Linux is here), and there are lot of scripts and utilities which expect this naming.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
systemd-204-8.fc19.i686.rpm
systemd-204-9.fc19.i686.rpm

Additional info:
Although is possible solve this problem beside of systemd/udev system initialization phase with some user scripting, this should be systemd task.

Comment 1 Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek 2013-09-10 14:58:44 UTC

Are you saying that it's not possible to rename interfaces *into* the ethX namespace? (E.g. have eth0 renamed to eth1, and eth1 to eth...). That's not supported inded, because it was racy. Even if it worked for a long time, computers are faster now, and the bootup sequence less predictable, and this just isn't supported anymore. For a longer explanation see "Why?" section in
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/PredictableNetworkInterfaceNames/ or https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56929#c3.