CentOS - May 2013 - Centos 6.4: Possible bug in system-config-network-cmd

I'm having a puzzling problem with system-config-network-cmd in CentOS 6.4.
I have a workstation with a number of different grub boot configurations (a
spare for a set of workstations, basically), each of which has a parameter
MYHOST=<hostname>, and I am using system-config-network-cmd to set the
boot configuration during the network process (using a small custom system
service that runs just before network startup, reads the configuration name from
/proc/cmdline and calls "system-config-network-cmd -p
<configname>").

I have properly disabled NetworkManager, and have
/etc/sysconfig/networking/devices and .../profiles set up correctly AFAIK (it
was all copied from a CentOS 5 machine, and the hand links were maintained
properly as needed; such a PITA that they got rid of the very nice GUI for
this).

This all works great, EXCEPT that if the machine is booted a fixed-IP profile,
the the DHCP ifcfg file also winds up in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts.  So, if
I have in profiles/dhcp/ifcfg-eth0_dhcp (with a hardlink in devices/, of
course):

TYPE=Ethernet
DEVICE=eth0
HWADDR=<MAC redacted>
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
USERCTL=no
IPV6INIT=no
PEERDNS=yes

and in profiles/fixed/ifcfg-eth0_fixed

GATEWAY=x.y.z.1
TYPE=Ethernet
DEVICE=eth0
HWADDR=<MAC redacted>
BOOTPROTO=none
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
IPADDR=x.y.z.n
ONBOOT=yes
USERCTL=no
IPV6INIT=no
PEERDNS=yes

If I boot into fixed, I find that ifcfg-eth0_dhcp is also in network-scripts,
and it tries to activate this interface, even though this interface is NOT in
profiles/fixed in any way!  This worked great in CentOS 5, so I think I know
what I'm doing here? For now, I am "fixing" the issue by running a
find on network-scripts to remove inappropriate files after running
systme-config-network-cmd, but that is complete cheese, of course. Is there
something missing from ifcfg-eth0_dhcp that is confusing the
system-config-network-cmd script? Is there any documentation on this that's
helpful? And is there simply a better way to do this that I've missed?

Thanks,
-G.
--
Glenn Eychaner (geychaner at lco.cl)
Telescope Systems Programmer, Las Campanas Observatory

Glenn Eychaner wrote:
> I'm having a puzzling problem with system-config-network-cmd in CentOS
> 6.4. I have a workstation with a number of different grub boot
> configurations (a spare for a set of workstations, basically), each of
> which has a parameter MYHOST=<hostname>, and I am using
> system-config-network-cmd to set the boot configuration during the network
> process (using a small custom system service that runs just before network
> startup, reads the configuration name from /proc/cmdline and calls
> "system-config-network-cmd -p <configname>").
>
> I have properly disabled NetworkManager, and have
> /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices and .../profiles set up correctly AFAIK
> (it was all copied from a CentOS 5 machine, and the hand links were
> maintained properly as needed; such a PITA that they got rid of the very
> nice GUI for this).
>
> This all works great, EXCEPT that if the machine is booted a fixed-IP
> profile, the the DHCP ifcfg file also winds up in
> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts.  So, if I have in
> profiles/dhcp/ifcfg-eth0_dhcp (with a hardlink in devices/, of course):
<snip>
Hmmm... have you looked at /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistant-net.rules?

         mark

m.roth:
> Hmmm... have you looked at /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistant-net.rules?
# PCI device 0x8086:0x104b (e1000e)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*",
ATTR{address}=="00:16:xx:xx:xx:xx", ATTR{type}=="1",
KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"

# PCI device 0x10b7:0x9200 (3c59x)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*",
ATTR{address}=="00:04:xx:xx;xx:xx", ATTR{type}=="1",
KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth1"

Not sure there's anything relevant there...

-G.
--
Glenn Eychaner (geychaner at lco.cl)
Telescope Systems Programmer, Las Campanas Observatory

On May 21, 2013, at 4:52 PM, Glenn Eychaner <geychaner at mac.com> wrote:
> I'm having a puzzling problem with system-config-network-cmd in CentOS
6.4.... This all works great, EXCEPT that if the machine is booted a fixed-IP
profile, the the DHCP ifcfg file also winds up in
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts.  So, if I have in profiles/dhcp/ifcfg-eth0_dhcp
(with a hardlink in devices/, of course):
After some fooling around, I figured out that the problem is with the default
profile. When you switch profiles, it copies whatever devices are in the profile
you switched to AND whatever is in the default profile into
.../network-scripts/, and if you delete the default profile or remove all the
network devices, it will *repopulate it for you* the next time you switch.  And
of course you can't just use the same generic name in all the profiles
(ifcfg_eth0), because then it gets really confused since the device names in
.../profiles/* have to match the devices in .../devices/.

This is a CHANGE in behavior from CentOS 5, and whoever thought it was a good
idea should be forced to use Windows ME for 30 days.

-G.
--
Glenn Eychaner (geychaner at lco.cl)
Telescope Systems Programmer, Las Campanas Observatory