Re: The magical mystical changing ethernet interface order

[Ray Lee <ray-lk@madrabbit.org>]

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