systemd patch info 
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/6c1e69f9456d022f14dd00737126cfa4d9cca10c

More info here
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1230210#c20

Additional reference links from support cases on the root cause of firmware device naming:

https://communities.vmware.com/thread/478439?start=0&tstart=0
https://github.com/systemd/systemd/commit/6c1e69f9456d022f14dd00737126cfa4d9cca10c

What if we suggest our customer running following script before the update.
It will go through the ifcfg files and for the broken ones, it will add the HWADDR line.
That will keep the same name even after update, because we have a udev rule, that rename the network card to DEVICE name for the device with specified HWADDR. This naming has a priority before the systemd one.

#!/bin/bash
. /etc/init.d/functions
. /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/network-functions

pushd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts > /dev/null

interfaces=$(ls ifcfg-* | \
        LC_ALL=C sed -e "$__sed_discard_ignored_files" \
               -e '/\(ifcfg-lo$\|:\|ifcfg-.*-range\)/d' \
               -e '{ s/^ifcfg-//g;s/[0-9]/ &/}' | \
        LC_ALL=C sort -k 1,1 -k 2n | \
        LC_ALL=C sed 's/ //')
        
    for i in $interfaces; do
        unset DEVICE HWADDR
        eval $(LANG=C grep -F "DEVICE=" ifcfg-$i)
        eval $(LANG=C grep -F "HWADDR=" ifcfg-$i)
        
        [ -n "$HWADDR" -o -z "$DEVICE" ] && continue
        [[ "$DEVICE" != eno* ]] && continue
        [ "${DEVICE#eno}" -lt "16383" ] && continue
        echo "HWADDR=$(get_hwaddr $DEVICE)"
    done

popd > /dev/null

Damn, there is a missing redirection

#!/bin/bash
. /etc/init.d/functions
. /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/network-functions

pushd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts > /dev/null

interfaces=$(ls ifcfg-* | \
        LC_ALL=C sed -e "$__sed_discard_ignored_files" \
               -e '/\(ifcfg-lo$\|:\|ifcfg-.*-range\)/d' \
               -e '{ s/^ifcfg-//g;s/[0-9]/ &/}' | \
        LC_ALL=C sort -k 1,1 -k 2n | \
        LC_ALL=C sed 's/ //')
        
    for i in $interfaces; do
        unset DEVICE HWADDR
        eval $(LANG=C grep -F "DEVICE=" ifcfg-$i)
        eval $(LANG=C grep -F "HWADDR=" ifcfg-$i)
        
        [ -n "$HWADDR" -o -z "$DEVICE" ] && continue
        [[ "$DEVICE" != eno* ]] && continue
        [ "${DEVICE#eno}" -lt "16383" ] && continue
        echo "HWADDR=$(get_hwaddr $DEVICE)" >> ifcfg-$i
    done

popd > /dev/null

the script from comment 10 is nice, I think the approach is the best in general.

But with almost the same effort, the script could write a udev-rule instead.

Advantage:

  - it works for users who don't use initscripts (or don't happen to have an
    ifcfg-file with DEVICE set), but still somehow depend on the old name.

  - the update process would not mangle the users' ifcfg-files, instead it just 
    creates one udev rule. The user can easily find out what happens, simply by 
    the presence of the particular udev rule. You can also easier get rid of the 
    upgrade-hack by deleting the file.


btw. pabeni pointed out, that 
        [[ "$DEVICE" != eno* ]] && continue
        [ "${DEVICE#eno}" -lt "16383" ] && continue
doesn't handle trailing "p<something>"

(In reply to Thomas Haller from comment #11)
> the script from comment 10 is nice, I think the approach is the best in
> general.
> 
> But with almost the same effort, the script could write a udev-rule instead.

We could re-use some code from rhel6 udev for that. That was a way how did persistent device names in the past.

> btw. pabeni pointed out, that 
>         [[ "$DEVICE" != eno* ]] && continue
>         [ "${DEVICE#eno}" -lt "16383" ] && continue
> doesn't handle trailing "p<something>"

This was meant as a proof-of-concept, it definitely needs some polishing.

So we put together with this script, if you run it before update it will write udev rules for the problematic devices and keep their names after the update.
https://paste.fedoraproject.org/474943/78509867/

Although I really don't like that idea, we can put this into a trigger in systemd package so this script will be run for everyone, when they update from old version.

Created attachment 1217980 [details]
pre upgrade script with fixed lower case issue

Created attachment 1218856 [details]
reboot failed

Public Blog post explaining this issue, how we got here and resolution.

https://www.redhat.com/en/about/blog/red-hat-enterprise-linux-73-achieving-persistent-and-consistent-network-interface-naming-vmware-environments

Red Hat Knowledge Solution Article explaining the issue, root cause, resolution and workarounds

https://access.redhat.com/solutions/2592561

Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHBA-2017:2297