For the longest time, I was able to use PERSISTENT_NAME="lab" etc on my SuSE servers to give meaningful names to net interfaces. The requirement I have, which I do not think is too much to ask for with most operating systems these days, is that I be able to give meaningful names to my net interfaces. PERSISTENT_NAME in /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-eth-<MAC> worked fine for me so far. Now, with SuSE 10, things seem to have changed and we are told not to do this but to read /usr/share/doc/packages/sysconfig/ README.Persistent_Interface_Names. So, I do that, and come out even more confused and frustrated - I am sure that file sounds good, exciting, informative, and otherwise improves the health and grades of theoreticians working with SuSE - for me, a poor little administrator, it helps not a one little bit - other than a vague idea that I need to create rules now in /etc/udev/rules.d/30-net_persistent_names.rules - I am no wiser than before - what exactly is this "rule", what does it look like, how does one create it? So, I google and ogle and otherwise pull my hair out. I get very few hits, but try putting the following in the 30-net_persistent_names.rules file: SUBSYSTEM=="net ", ACTION=="add ", SYSFS{address}=="00:60:97:07:bd:f6 ", IMPORT="/sbin/rename_netiface %k lab " I do a /etc/init.d/network restart, and it works. I do the same for the one other nic, making sure I have commented out the PERSISTENT_NAME line in the ifcfg-eth-<MAC> file, do a /etc/init.d/network restart and things look good. So, I reboot. My interfaces are now eth0 and eth1! /etc/init.d/network restart doe s not do anything. I make sure nothing changed the 30-net_persistent_names.rules file, it looks fine, my entries are in there. I try variations of the rule in that file, and then variations of variations but nothing works. So, now I have the PERSISTENT_NAME back in the ifcfg-eth-<MAC> file and all the rules commented in 30-net_persistent_names.rules. The machine(s) work as expected - but the glaring warning pops up at boot time to desist from using PERSISTENT_NAME, and, even though the interfaces work fine, the network service still reports as failing - which, perhaps harmless, causes our operations staff to have heart palpitations. So, in short, what is the proper method to use assign a friendly name to a network interface on SuSE 10? Perhaps something as easy as right-click, rename as my Windows counterparts cannot stop from pointing out to me at this time? Regards, -- --Moby