eth device number increases after each reboot

[Guest]

Hello all,

After every reboot, my ethernet device's device increases by one.

This would be fine, however it collides with my shorewall configuration; I have to remember to adjust it after every reboot.

To fix the problem, I've attempted installing ifrename and using /etc/iftab to change the device on boot. The configuration seems to be correct, however the device number still simply climbs by one every boot.

What options do I have to fix this?

[chrismortimore]

Take a look in /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules, and see if NAME="" is set to something strange.

[chance2105]

That was just the hint I needed.

Looking at that file, I'm seeing .. all these eth devices, with different MAC addresses.

Turns out, the MAC address of my adapter was not being detected correctly by the Etch kernel. It is, evidently, some known issue between Asus motherboards + the forcedeth driver. Instead of the kernel giving the device a nice steady MAC address is was giving it a random one.

Code: Select all

0000:00:07.0: Invalid Mac address detected: 87:84:65:f3:18:00
Please complain to your hardware vendor. Switching to a random MAC.

UDEV was taking this as a hint, and assigning it a new /dev/ address every time.

The light at the end of the tunnel: once you get to eth19, you don't get any higher.

I upgraded to 2.6.21. It seems to not be an issue with this kernel.

[chrismortimore]

Heh, glad it all worked out in the end

[richardjw]

Im having the same problem - is there a way to force the MAC, as I really dont need 19-ETH's in the thing?

Any I would image this is also the reason I have to keep entering the PriDNS and SecDNS every time I boot as well??

[chrismortimore]

@richardjw: "macchanger" will do it. And your sound card (AD1986A) should work with the snd-hda-intel module.

[richardjw]

Thanks Chrismortimore,

But is that a standard program (macchanger) or is that something Ill need to apt-get from a standard debian etch 64bit machine?

As for the sound card, yeah, everything I read also tells me that it is equivilent to a Intel8*0A series, but if the set-up program AND alsaconf cant find the hardware, how the devil do to MAKE IT work...? The module needs the hardware to be found doesnt it?

Please expand for me, cos I would love to know, u have given more advice and NEW advice than anyone else.

Regards and thanks! Rich

[richardjw]

Just checked out the macchanger and it looks like it might do the job - as long as it will FORCE the Eth to stay the same AND force the MAC every time I reboot then, I will be happy...

...I spose its a suck-it-and-see kinda thing eh?

Cheers for the heads up!

Rich

[chance2105]

richardjw,

I notice you have the exact same motherboard I do.

Basically, the onboard sound won't work with the standard Etch kernel. To get it to work, you will need to use alsa-drivers from alsa's site (1.0.14-rc4 currently) - the alsa-drivers in Etch will not work. The sound driver is sound_hda.

[Karol]

Hi,

I have completly the same problems
audio -> didn't got it working
nvidia binary driver -> didn't even try
netcard -> I need always the correct MAC (for VPN/MAC checking), so I always at shutdown delete the net rules created by udev and on startup force the card to change MAC by usinf ifconfig ...

Karol

[mongooseman1128]

I've been having the changing Mac address problem for quite some time. I never noticed it before now because at home I have nothinng that it can mess up but here at school our computers are registered by mac address. Anyway, I'm fine with using macchanger and writing a script so the mac address at least seems static, but I do have a problem with what this appears to be doing to the card itself. On the extremely rare occasions that I use windows I've noticed that windows recognizes the card as having a mac address of all 0. I also noticed that the reported problem is with Asus boards. I on the other hand have an Nvidia board. Has anyone heard of this also being a problem with Nvidia mobos? Also, do you know if I find my cards true mac address and set that to be the permanent one will that maybe fix my problem with windows?
EDIT: I just wrote a script for using macchanger on reboot, but I realized that it doesn't work because at every reboot the name of the device changes. any ideas on how to get around this? (tried using eth* for the device name already)

[plugwash]

find the persistant net rules file, get rid of all the rules that have built up and replace them with a single rule that matches by driver alone and not mac address.

[mongooseman1128]

sorry to go so long without posting back. Could you give me a little more detail about that last suggestion?

[plugwash]

try the following

edit /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules

remove all the existing entries and add a new one, something like

SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="forcedeth", NAME="eth0"

[mikecore]

Thanks for posting the thing about /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules, After doing that my network card came up on boot.