> consistent-net.rules nailed it to a mac address on first boot
fails even harder for
> put in a live-CD to debug something and your network devices are suddenly weird
I don't know that there is really any good answer here. Just methods that break in ways you're used to, and methods that break in ways you aren't. I appreciate the attempt at static naming based on hardware connection, even if the realities of how these things are presented by the bios make the results an inscrutable mess.
Maybe pure enx would have been better? But that looks like crap for even the simple cases, and fails if you swap out a piece of hardware or start doing weird things with MAC addresses.
The only consistent naming scheme I've ever seen working was Solaris on Sun hardware. But that only worked because they controlled both the hardware and the software side of things.
And yes, consistent-net.rules doesn't solve LiveCDs and reinstallations. But as I've said, systemd doesn't solve those either, and in most cases actively makes them worse.
My experience has not been that the systemd device names are "actively worse". The biggest problem I've had is changing around VMs where subtle shifts in PCIe IDs (specifically subdevices) end up changing changing names. Meanwhile, consistent-net.rules seems like a hack, always in the back of your mind as an arbitrary stateful part of the system. Why should I think of my primary network device as eth2 if there is no reason for it to be eth2 other than merely being the order on the first install?
But if you prefer consistent-net.rules, then more power to you. I'm guessing most of your frustrations could have been addressed by systemd having some shame about changing functionality out from under users, and providing an up-front option to switch between the different methods.
fails even harder for
> put in a live-CD to debug something and your network devices are suddenly weird
I don't know that there is really any good answer here. Just methods that break in ways you're used to, and methods that break in ways you aren't. I appreciate the attempt at static naming based on hardware connection, even if the realities of how these things are presented by the bios make the results an inscrutable mess.
Maybe pure enx would have been better? But that looks like crap for even the simple cases, and fails if you swap out a piece of hardware or start doing weird things with MAC addresses.