Two NICs - swapped initialization

[Darrin Chandler]

On Wed, Dec 06, 2006 at 06:03:07PM -0800, Kenneth wrote:
> > 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.

This is probably the case. New kernel, that is. It used to be a much
worse problem, as if you throw out probes some devices may not respond
in the same timeframe always, so one boot you'd get one order, and the
next boot you'd get a different order. Newer kernels are better about
this, but it can still happen, IIRC. Not such a big deal for a desktop
machine, but it's probably worth dinking with the config for a
router/firewall.

-- 
Darrin Chandler            |  Phoenix BSD Users Group
dwchandler at stilyagin.com   |  http://bsd.phoenix.az.us/
http://www.stilyagin.com/  |