Eric Hines wrote:
Folks,
I'm running SUSE Pro 9.3 on an Intel server board with two NICs built in (a GigE and a 10/100). I've since added a Netgear GigE as a 3d NIC. I'm trying to set this box up as a Samba server for a 2-subnet LAN that will have a mix of XP and SUSE machines. eth0 is supposed to face the Net (on ....1.2); the other two NICs are supposed to connect only to eth0 for access to the Net and to each other.
The problem I'm having (or maybe not; I'm an extreme newbie with networking) is that every time I boot up the SUSE server, the NICs come out assigned differently:
1 boot: eth0 on 192.168.3.1 Intel GigE NIC eth1 on ...2.2 Intel 10/100 eth2 on ...3.1 Netgear
2 boot: eth0 on ...3.1 Intel 10/100 eth1 on ...1.2 Netgear eth2 on ...2.2 Intel GigE
3 boot: eth0 on ...1.2 Netgear eth1 on ...3.1 Intel GigE eth2 on ...2.2 Intel 10/100
and so on. Both IP address assignments to the NICs and which NIC is on a given ethx change, apparently at random.
It would seem that cabling my subnets cannot be done if the NIC assignments keep changing on every boot up.
How can I force the system to keep the NICs on a stable assignment--and one of my choosing? The above changes come whether I change the NIC assignments via YaST or do nothing at all before a reboot.
Take a look at /etc/sysconfig/network/. In there, you'll find the full name for your NICs. For example, on this desktop system, I've got ifcfg-eth-id-00:05:5d:f6:04:ce, which is the config file for my ethernet port. My firewall, which has 3 NICs has 3 such files, each one containing the MAC address of the respective NIC. Find the files for each NIC and make your changes there, or use Yast, which also uses them.