CentOS - Dec 2009 - CentOS 5.4 - Problem with Enumeration of NICs

I just made a new CentOS 5.4 installation. The machine has an Intel 
10/100 and an Intel GB on board, and a Broadcom GB card on a PCI-X (64 
bit) slot. After the install finished, I noticed that the order and 
naming of the Ethernet interfaces is totally screwed up. Under Network 
Manager, the Intel GB card shows the MAC address of the Broadcom and 
vice-versa. As a consequence, none of them works. When I push the Probe 
button, they show each other's MAC Adress. The names of the devices do 
not correspond to the names of the interfaces. If I correct the problem 
by manually editing the configuration files, they MAY get wrong again 
upon reboot. Only the 10/100 interface stays put.

After a remote reboot for kernel update, I just lost connection with the 
machine, so I guess it happened again.
This NEVER happened with CentOS 5.2 or 5.3 on the same machine.

I want to manually assign a ID to the cards and let them keep it forever.
Will the manual entry of the HWADDR=/ /parameter in the ifcfg-eth<x> 
files fix this for good or will it be overrided by some other component 
of the OS?

Thank you.

On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 6:01 PM, Miguel Medalha <miguelmedalha at sapo.pt>
wrote:
> I want to manually assign a ID to the cards and let them keep it forever.
> Will the manual entry of the HWADDR=/ /parameter in the ifcfg-eth<x>
> files fix this for good or will it be overrided by some other component
> of the OS?
Miguel,

I just went through this a few weeks ago myself.  If you want to check
the archives, I believe the subject was something like "nic order,
again"

As I recall my solution was to comment out the modprobe alias created
for the network cards (/etc/modprobe.conf) and then in
network-scripts, use the HWADDR in each config script.  Make sure the
device=ethX matches the name of the file, if nothing else, for your
own sanity - since the OS checks that line, and does not care what the
file is named.

Good luck!
Gordon

> As I recall my solution was to comment out the modprobe alias created
> for the network cards (/etc/modprobe.conf) and then in
> network-scripts, use the HWADDR in each config script.  Make sure the
> device=ethX matches the name of the file, if nothing else, for your
> own sanity - since the OS checks that line, and does not care what the
> file is named.
>
>   
Thank you for your answer. I will look it up.

I found this useful article:

Linux Enumeration of NICs
http://linux.dell.com/files/whitepapers/nic-enum-whitepaper-v4.pdf

The author, a Dell employee, made a script to automate the process of 
ordering the NICs. He also gives tips to manually solve this recurring 
problem.

Regards
Miguel