The following patch (to my /etc/rc.d/init.d/netword -- version 4.70-1)
allows dots in ifcfg-* filenames.  Allowing dots in the name of the
configuration files is especially useful when using a laptop.  For
examples, two configurations could be named ifcfg-redhat.com and
ifcfg-isp.net could exist.  This is much more descriptive than ifcfg-eth0
and ifcfg-eth1.

--- network     Wed Feb  9 14:26:17 2000
+++ /etc/rc.d/init.d/network    Wed Feb  9 13:47:06 2000
@@ -34,11 +34,11 @@

 # find all the interfaces besides loopback.
 # ignore aliases, alternative configurations, and editor backup files
-interfaces=`ls ifcfg* | egrep -v '(ifcfg-lo|:)' | egrep 'ifcfg-[a-z0-9]+$'
| \
+interfaces=`ls ifcfg* | egrep -v '(ifcfg-lo|:)' | egrep
'ifcfg-[.a-z0-9]+$' | \
             sed 's/^ifcfg-//g'`
 interfaces_boot=

-for inter in `ls ifcfg* | egrep -v '(ifcfg-lo|:)' | egrep
'ifcfg-[a-z0-9]+$'`; do
+for inter in `ls ifcfg* | egrep -v '(ifcfg-lo|:)' | egrep
'ifcfg-[.a-z0-9]+$'`; do
       int=`egrep -L "ONBOOT=\"?[Nn][Oo]\"?" $inter | sed 's/^ifcfg-//g'`
       [ -n "$int" ] && interfaces_boot="$interfaces_boot $int"
 done