--- Kevin Brown wrote: > > Hoping someone knows this one, to save me what would probably turn into a > > couple of days of research to satisfy my curiosity :) > > > > I have been running Gentoo for a while, and this machine is my router and > > firewall. It has two ethernet controllers in it. When I first installed, > it > > called the controller I wanted to be eth0, eth1 and vice versa (I know it > > doesn't really matter, but it's a personal idiosyncracy). I placed the > names > > for the modules in the /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 file, with the > one > > I wanted to be eth0 first, and that got them in my preferred order so I > > assumed that the first loaded module would be eth0. > > > > Well after an update the other day, the two swapped places and I wasn't > able > > to get them back, so finally just left them. It wasn't all bad, I > discovered > > a bug in my firewall setup script when it failed, but I'm curious what > > decides which controller is which, and how it could change on it's own. > > The order of the naming of the devices is based on the order they are > discovered on the PCI bus. It is possible that an update to the kernel > resulted in a reversal of the discovery order and so reverse the names. > Back when I had a small linux router (P166 box) I had put entries in > modprobe.conf or conf.modprobe (been so long) that dictated the naming > of each device based on the MAC address to correct for this issue. > Another way might be to specify which NIC is which in the config files. > > This is a RH specific link, but might help you figure out how to do > things in Gentoo. > http://linux.dell.com/files/whitepapers/nic-enum-whitepaper-v2.pdf Thanks for the link. I guess I knew it had to be whatever the kernel scanned first, I guess I was hoping there was a simple way to force it. There was a kernel update, and that was probably when the switch occurred. I didn't use the new one right away so I'm not sure. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Want to start your own business? Learn how on Yahoo! Small Business. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/r-index --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss