Re: The magical mystical changing ethernet interface order

Ray Lee
2003-05-08T23:24:52Z

Jean Tourrilhes wrote:
> My belief is that configuration scripts should be specified in
> term of MAC address (or subset) and not in term of device name. Just
> like the Pcmcia scripts are doing it.

Debian already supports this, integrated into the normal scheme for
dealing with interfaces. Anyone running Debian can take a look at
/usr/share/doc/ifupdown/examples directory, the network-interfaces.gz
file contains sample /etc/network/interfaces stanzas for configuring
your interfaces via MAC address:

auto eth0 eth1
mapping eth0 eth1
script /path/to/get-mac-addr.sh
map 11:22:33:44:55:66 lan
map AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF internet
iface lan inet static
address 192.168.42.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
pre-up /usr/local/sbin/enable-masq $IFACE
iface internet inet dhcp
pre-up /usr/local/sbin/firewall $IFACE

You can even do something like:

iface wireless inet dhcp
wireless_key 12345678901234567890123456

A sample get-mac-address.sh is in the same directory, though it has a
typo (missing a close paren -- I need to report that...). This same
scheme works for pinging some well-known host to determine where you
are, or using ARPs, or whatever. I use it on my laptop with PCMCIA
cards, works great.

Ray