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I saw this occasionally in FC3 when booting, but I think I see it more
often in FC5. My relevant modprobe.conf lines are as follows ...

alias eth0 tg3
alias eth1 ipw2200

Yet sometimes ipw2200 gets assigned to eth0 and tg3 gets assigned to
eth0. ifconfig and iwconfig say so.

My suspicion is that ipw2200 finishes loading first (sometimes) and just
grabs eth0 as the first available ethX designation. Then tg3 grabs the
next one.

Why don't the modules obey modprobe.conf when they load? I can unload
and load them manually in the right order, but it ought to happen
automatically.

Is there any way to force the modules to obey what exists in
modprobe.conf? (which really seems to me like a silly question, except
that they don't already)

Thanks in advance for any info.

Allen Kistler wrote:
> I saw this occasionally in FC3 when booting, but I think I see it more
> often in FC5. My relevant modprobe.conf lines are as follows ...
>
> alias eth0 tg3
> alias eth1 ipw2200
>
> Yet sometimes ipw2200 gets assigned to eth0 and tg3 gets assigned to
> eth0. ifconfig and iwconfig say so.

That's supposed to be ipw2200 gets eth0 and tg3 gets eth1. Oops.

> My suspicion is that ipw2200 finishes loading first (sometimes) and just
> grabs eth0 as the first available ethX designation. Then tg3 grabs the
> next one.
>
> Why don't the modules obey modprobe.conf when they load? I can unload
> and load them manually in the right order, but it ought to happen
> automatically.
>
> Is there any way to force the modules to obey what exists in
> modprobe.conf? (which really seems to me like a silly question, except
> that they don't already)
>
> Thanks in advance for any info.

Allen Kistler wrote:

> Allen Kistler wrote:
>> I saw this occasionally in FC3 when booting, but I think I see it more
>> often in FC5. My relevant modprobe.conf lines are as follows ...
>>
>> alias eth0 tg3
>> alias eth1 ipw2200
>>
>> Yet sometimes ipw2200 gets assigned to eth0 and tg3 gets assigned to
>> eth0. ifconfig and iwconfig say so.
>
> That's supposed to be ipw2200 gets eth0 and tg3 gets eth1. Oops.
>
>> My suspicion is that ipw2200 finishes loading first (sometimes) and just
>> grabs eth0 as the first available ethX designation. Then tg3 grabs the
>> next one.
>>
>> Why don't the modules obey modprobe.conf when they load? I can unload
>> and load them manually in the right order, but it ought to happen
>> automatically.
>>
>> Is there any way to force the modules to obey what exists in
>> modprobe.conf? (which really seems to me like a silly question, except
>> that they don't already)
>>
>> Thanks in advance for any info.

I think you can go into the respective ifcfg-eth{0,1} files
in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts and set the HWADDR
values to the ones for each HW address for the cards
(which you can see by using {if/iw}config commands to see the reported
HWaddr for each one).
Mark

Mark wrote:
> Allen Kistler wrote:
>>Allen Kistler wrote:
>>
>>>I saw this occasionally in FC3 when booting, but I think I see it more
>>>often in FC5. My relevant modprobe.conf lines are as follows ...
>>>
>>>alias eth0 tg3
>>>alias eth1 ipw2200
>>>
>>>Yet sometimes ...
>>
>>... ipw2200 gets eth0 and tg3 gets eth1....
>>
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>>Thanks in advance for any info.
>
> I think you can go into the respective ifcfg-eth{0,1} files
> in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts and set the HWADDR
> values to the ones for each HW address for the cards
> (which you can see by using {if/iw}config commands to see the reported
> HWaddr for each one).
> Mark

I'm pretty sure the ifcfg-ethX scripts only run when the interface comes
up, after the alias is assigned, which should happen at module load.

Interestingly there is a new FC5 initscripts rpm (dated 7/7) which lists
as its changes:

> initscripts-8.31.5 adds a udev helper for renaming devices,
> so that devices are renamed to their configured name on
> module load, as opposed to when they are brought up. It also
> fixes initialization of bridging interfaces, and cleans up
> an error message on boot from newer CUPS packages.

I haven't dug into the package to see what the new "udev helper"
actually does, but I'll give it a whirl and see if it appears to help.

Allen Kistler wrote:
> I saw this occasionally in FC3 when booting, but I think I see it more
> often in FC5. My relevant modprobe.conf lines are as follows ...
>
> alias eth0 tg3
> alias eth1 ipw2200
>
> Yet sometimes ipw2200 gets assigned to eth0 and tg3 gets assigned to
> eth0. ifconfig and iwconfig say so.
>
Is this a new "feature" in Fedora? Because in RHEL3 this does not happen:

[/etc]$ cat modules.conf
alias eth0 e1000
alias eth1 e1000
alias eth2 e100

This never messes up.

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 06:00:01 up 89 days, 19:33, 4 users, load average: 4.22, 4.22, 4.10

Jean-David Beyer wrote:
> Allen Kistler wrote:
>> I saw this occasionally in FC3 when booting, but I think I see it more
>> often in FC5. My relevant modprobe.conf lines are as follows ...
>>
>> alias eth0 tg3
>> alias eth1 ipw2200
>>
>> Yet sometimes ipw2200 gets assigned to eth0 and tg3 gets assigned to
>> eth0. ifconfig and iwconfig say so.
>>
> Is this a new "feature" in Fedora? Because in RHEL3 this does not happen:
>
> [/etc]$ cat modules.conf
> alias eth0 e1000
> alias eth1 e1000
> alias eth2 e100
>
> This never messes up.

There was an issue with the 2.6.17-1.2139 kernel and initscripts. This
has been fixed. Updating to the 2145 kernel and the latest initscripts
8.31.5-1 should take care of it.

HTH,

Marc Schwartz

Jean-David Beyer <jeandavid8@verizon.net> writes:

>Allen Kistler wrote:
>> I saw this occasionally in FC3 when booting, but I think I see it more
>> often in FC5. My relevant modprobe.conf lines are as follows ...
>>
>> alias eth0 tg3
>> alias eth1 ipw2200
>>
>> Yet sometimes ipw2200 gets assigned to eth0 and tg3 gets assigned to
>> eth0. ifconfig and iwconfig say so.
>>
>Is this a new "feature" in Fedora? Because in RHEL3 this does not happen:

>[/etc]$ cat modules.conf
>alias eth0 e1000
>alias eth1 e1000
>alias eth2 e100


>This never messes up.

You are lucky. Try changing the order of those and see what happens.
Ie,
alias eth0 e1000
alias eth1 e100
alias eth2 e1000

>--
> .~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
> /V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
> /( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
> ^^-^^ 06:00:01 up 89 days, 19:33, 4 users, load average: 4.22, 4.22, 4.10

Unruh wrote:
> Jean-David Beyer <jeandavid8@verizon.net> writes:
>
>> Allen Kistler wrote:
>>> I saw this occasionally in FC3 when booting, but I think I see it
>>> more often in FC5. My relevant modprobe.conf lines are as follows
>>> ...
>>>
>>> alias eth0 tg3 alias eth1 ipw2200
>>>
>>> Yet sometimes ipw2200 gets assigned to eth0 and tg3 gets assigned to
>>> eth0. ifconfig and iwconfig say so.
>>>
>> Is this a new "feature" in Fedora? Because in RHEL3 this does not
>> happen:
>
>> [/etc]$ cat modules.conf alias eth0 e1000 alias eth1 e1000 alias eth2
>> e100
>
>
>> This never messes up.
>
> You are lucky. Try changing the order of those and see what happens. Ie,
> alias eth0 e1000
> alias eth1 e100
> alias eth2 e1000
>
eth0 and eth1 cannot be changed as they are 1 GBit ethernet interfaces on my
motherboard. eth2 is a 100 Megabit NIC. So i cannot move them around.

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 14:35:01 up 90 days, 4:08, 4 users, load average: 4.29, 4.26, 4.10

>> You are lucky. Try changing the order of those and see what happens. Ie,
>> alias eth0 e1000
>> alias eth1 e100
>> alias eth2 e1000
>>
> eth0 and eth1 cannot be changed as they are 1 GBit ethernet interfaces on my
> motherboard. eth2 is a 100 Megabit NIC. So i cannot move them around.

nameif might do this for you. I've never actually tried it, but I've
had it mess up the order in modules.conf so many times that it's got to
be able to do this :-)

Jean-David Beyer <jeandavid8@verizon.net> writes:

>Unruh wrote:
>> Jean-David Beyer <jeandavid8@verizon.net> writes:
>>
>>> Allen Kistler wrote:
>>>> I saw this occasionally in FC3 when booting, but I think I see it
>>>> more often in FC5. My relevant modprobe.conf lines are as follows
>>>> ...
>>>>
>>>> alias eth0 tg3 alias eth1 ipw2200
>>>>
>>>> Yet sometimes ipw2200 gets assigned to eth0 and tg3 gets assigned to
>>>> eth0. ifconfig and iwconfig say so.
>>>>
>>> Is this a new "feature" in Fedora? Because in RHEL3 this does not
>>> happen:
>>
>>> [/etc]$ cat modules.conf alias eth0 e1000 alias eth1 e1000 alias eth2
>>> e100
>>
>>
>>> This never messes up.
>>
>> You are lucky. Try changing the order of those and see what happens. Ie,
>> alias eth0 e1000
>> alias eth1 e100
>> alias eth2 e1000
>>
>eth0 and eth1 cannot be changed as they are 1 GBit ethernet interfaces on my
>motherboard. eth2 is a 100 Megabit NIC. So i cannot move them around.

Move them around? It is the names that we are concerned with. As I said to
you, you are lucky that your system does not change names. Note that if you
look at teh two e1000 interfaces, I suspect that the ordering is
undetermined-- sometimes the one card is eth0 and sometimes the other.



>--
> .~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
> /V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
> /( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
> ^^-^^ 14:35:01 up 90 days, 4:08, 4 users, load average: 4.29, 4.26, 4.10