eth0 / eth1 relocated under RedHat AS 3.0 ( divert_blk ?)

[steve longland]

Please forgive me if the information I was seeking is here already - I wasn't able to find it.
We are using ProLiant DL380 systems - G3,G4 to host a Media Server application. These systems come with the (2) embedded BCM5703 Gigabit Ethernet NICs as eth0 and eth1. When we add NC7170 cards to the system, eth0 and eth1 seem to be relocated to the NC7170 ports and the BCM native NICS become eth2 and eth3.
Is this expected behavior? Is there a way to suppress it such that eth0 and eth1 remain on embedded NICs as expected? The hwconf file still lists the bcm NICs at eth0 and eth1, but dmesg output indicates otherwise:
e1000: eth0: e1000_probe: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection
divert: allocating divert_blk for eth1
e1000: eth1: e1000_probe: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection

We're sepecially interested in this since we have bonding implemented as well.
Thanks in advance for any clues !
/steve

[Vitaly Karasik_1]

AFAIK, you there two ways to play with NICs order:
- /etc/modules.conf - you may say "alias eth0 e1000" and so on
- using "nameif" utility from net-tools package

[Thomas Bianco]

most of the time, NIC ordering is based on PCI bus walk order.

try putting the new card in on the other side of the old card

[Matthew Ausmus]

I consistently work with multiple NICs both integrated and add on cards. I used Vitaly's method. It allows me to maitain complete control over what NIC is what. One thing I've found is that Linux sees add on cards before it sees integrated NICs; it just seems to be the nature of the beast. This is what is nice about modules.conf. When you have multiple of the same PCI card NIC then you have to follow Thomas' suggestion as well.

[steve longland]

Thanks for the replies so far..I guess I'm really looking for a way to 'guarantee' that eth0 (for instance) will -always- be associated with embedded NIC 1 etc. Understanding why they seem to be relocated may help me understand how to do that. (We need consistency for manufacturing process)

[steve longland]

Sorry Matthew - kind of a collision there ;)Are you suggesting that I can, in fact, steer "eth0" to remain on the embedded native NIC 1 port by virtue of the entry in /etc/modules.conf? IN other words, as it is now, I have accepted the fact that eth0 has been relocated to port 1 of my add-on NC 7170, and associated the proper driver with it in /etc/modules.conf.
alias eth0 e1000
do you believe that I could steer it back by changing the entry to
alias eth0 bcm5700?

[Matthew Ausmus]

I would suggest doing the initial install without the NC7170 card. This should put the integrated NICs in the right place. Next, modify modules.conf and create the ifcfg-ethx file for the NC7170 card. Now install the card. Everything should be the way you want it.

If you do the initial OS installation with all 3 adapters, you will need to go in and modify modules.conf as well as all the ifcfg-ethx files to put the NICs where you want them to be.

[Matthew Ausmus]

Yes, you can steer the integrated NIC to eth0 using the modules.conf file. Remember, you will need to modify the ifcfg-ethx files as well otherwise you will get errors.

[steve longland]

Matthew, sorry to sound clueless here..but why would you have to modify the ifcfg-ethx file - if alias eth0 bcm5700 specified in /etc/modules.conf, aren't the ifcfg-eth0 file attributes all applied Or is there a field that you need to trick - like "DEVICE"

DEVICE=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=static
IPADDR=16.26.176.8
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
GATEWAY=16.26.176.100

[Matthew Ausmus · Accepted solution]

No, you are not clueless, in fact you're correct. The reason I mentioned ifcfg-ethx files is because they allow you to specify the hardware addresses for in the NIC in it. I do in mine but it is not something normally done or needed for most situations.

The only other reason you'd have to modify them is if you need to change the IP address. It sounds like you've got the NIC that you want at eth0 actually at eth1 so you may have configured eth1 with the IP address that you really want for eth0 once you get the NIC configured for eth0. Otherwise, you don't need to modify the file.