Change interface names back to eth0, eth1 on CentOS 7

CentOS 7 interface naming has changed from the previous version, now instead of the first interface being named eth0, the second named eth1 and so forth, we have eno1 or eno16777984 or some other scheme starting with eno, not a major deal unless your running a multi node application that depends on all the interfaces accross the servers to be named the same. One such application (the one that has caused me the most grief) is Openstack. Openstack is already a nightmare to stand up, we dont need more complications! So, lets change it back!

 

Im assuming you have a fresh install of CentOS 7 x64

First lets grab a text editor.

sudo yum install nano

Next we need to disable the new interface naming rule. We do this by editing GRUB

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

 

Add

net.ifnames=0

on the line that reads:

“GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=”rd.lvm.lv=centos/swap vconsole.font=latarcyrheb-sun16 rd.lvm.lv=centos/root crashkernel=auto  vconsole.keymap=us net.ifnames=0 <—— add this in the exact same spot, and leave everything after it where it is.

save the file with keystrokes “CTRL + X, “Y”, [ENTER]

Now we need to regenerate GRUB with this command:

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

 

Next lets re-create the old renaming rules. First create this file if it does not exist.

sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

Within this file add a line like this for each interface on your machine.

SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"

SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTR{address}=="xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx", ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth1"

So if your machine has two interfaces you would have two lines like above. Make sure you change the xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx to the corresponding interfaces mac address & you change the name at the end of the line to match the next interface (eth0, eth1, eth2…)

So now we have fixed the naming rules for when your machine boots. What about the names already configured?

Lets take care of those next.

Move into the folder that contains the interfaces config files:

cd /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts

If we list the files in this folder we will see the current ones, they are the ones with the name of the interface preceded by “ifcfg-” so if your current interface is called eno1, its config file is listed in this folder as “ifcfg-eno1”

We need to change these to match the new rules we created… so:

cp ifcfg-eno1 ifcfg-eth0

this will copy the config file to a new name “ifcfg-eth0”

now lets delete the old config file:

rm ifcfg-eno1

you will be asked to confirm this deletion, it is ok to do so because we copied it to a new file.

Now lets change a few things in the newly named file to match our new config.

nano ifcfg-eth0

this will bring up the text editor and open the config file.

in here you want to change the “name=eno1” field to make it say:

name="eth0"

Finally, even though its deprecated, you can get “ifconfig” back with.

sudo yum install net-tools

That is it!

reboot and when your server comes back up it will have eth0 and eth1 instead of eno..

Do this on all the servers in your application that is sensitive to interface name changes and you will be fine to use CentOS 7

 

– Carmine Bufano