General Information

Persistent network interface names prevent interfaces being renamed from “eth0” to “eth1” upon reboot.
Instead, a name based upon BIOS/firmware information can be used if available.

Checklist

• Distro(s): Debian Based or Enterprise Linux

Install biosdevname

yum install biosdevname

Enable biosdevname as a parameter passed to the kernel

• EL7

  vim /etc/default/grub
   
  # Add to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX values
  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="biosdevname=1"

• EL6

  vim /boot/grub/grub.conf
   
  # Append biosdevname=1 to all kernel lines. Example:
  kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.32-279.22.1.el6.x86_64 ro root=/dev/sda3 biosdevname=1

Update Grub config

• EL 7

  grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

• EL 6: manual changes already made above.

• Ubuntu

  update-grub

The following preference order is used for biosdevname:

1. Firmware/BIOS index numbers for on board devices
   1. Example: eno2
   2. Not Available?: Fallback to number 2
2. Firmware/BIOS provided PCI Express slot index numbers
   1. Example: ens2
   2. Not Available?: Fallback to number 3
3. Physical Location of the connector
   1. Example: enp3s0
   2. Not Available?: Fallback to number 5
4. Interfaces MAC address (not used by default, but can be user selected)
   1. Example: enx080027e468c1
   2. Not Available?: Fallback to number 5
5. Traditional unpredictable naming
   1. Example: eth0