How to rename wireless interface on bootup using ifrename

krosswindz · n00b Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 39

I have the intel pro wireless 2200 BG card in my laptop. Before version 1.0.0 I had the option of setting the interface name as wlan%d using the ifname module parameter. From 1.0.0 ipw2200 uses regular kernel way to change interface name using ifrename. I have the iftab setup but I want to be able to choose the correct interface name when the module is loaded. The problem being that I use lvm and my /usr is not mounted until after all my modules are loaded because of which hotplug isnt able to rename my device correctly. Any idea as to what I could do to solve this problem. Any help on this is appreciated

thesnowman · Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:30 pm Post subject:

I used to use /etc/modules.d/aliases:

krosswindz · n00b Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 39

I tried the alias with wlan0, it never worked. If I rmmod ipw2200 and then modprobe it again it comes as wlan0 because of hotplug. It doesnt do that on the first autoload. I just want the first autoload to work. Thanks for the help

thesnowman · Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:03 am Post subject:

This has changed in version net-wireless/ipw2200-1.0.1 not 1.0.0. I had 1.0.0 installed until this morning. I have now installed 1.0.1 and the behaviour has changed. My interface is now called eth0 and as you rightly say, the alias does not change it to eth1. I'm going to downgrade...

thesnowman · Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 7:39 am Post subject:

Have a look at this thread on the ipw2100 mailing list, in particular the first and second replies:
http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=10808215

Brix suggests that this is documented in the CHANGES file, however I could not see it:

thesnowman · Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 8:09 am Post subject:

Got it to work with the following udev rule in /etc/udev/rules.d/10-udev.rules:

krosswindz · n00b Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 39

Thanks for the tip, it worked. Another quick question is it possible to free up eth1 so that some other device can use it instead of it being named eth2, probably I am asking for too much

ribx · Posted: Sat Feb 26, 2005 3:42 pm Post subject:

i am not running udev. here how i did it:

echo '<new_name> mac xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx' >> /etc/iftab

reload the module. thats all. it seems that the driver reads it out. i dont understand it realy but it works

for more info:
man ifrename
man iftab

first i though i have to run ifrename, but when i did it it told me that the device was busy. so i tried to reload it with modprobe et voila:

krosswindz · n00b Joined: 15 Oct 2004 Posts: 39

The reason that works is that you are using hotplug. When you load the module hotplug looks for /etc/iftab and see that you have /etc/iftab so uses ifrename to rename the module when you reinsert it. It doesnt seem to be able to pick it up when it boots which kind of baffles me. I dont want to go through the process of reinserting the module every boot. udev rule works for me.

KhanReaper · n00b Joined: 21 Sep 2004 Posts: 37

What system package provides ifrename and iftab?
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ribx · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 7:23 pm Post subject:

ribx · Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 8:39 pm Post subject:

i have another problem now:

i switched to the udev thing, because my wlan card has the mac address 00:00:00:00:00:00 if it is switched off by the hardware key. maybe you think that shouldnt be a problem, something like

rabinath · n00b Joined: 03 Jan 2006 Posts: 31 Location: Germany

Just for those using

bookstack · Apprentice Joined: 27 Feb 2004 Posts: 245

Let me push it further:

Yes, we can set the udev rule by mac address, it also works.

How could we *automatically* rename the eth%d interface to wlan0%d, if the device is driven by ndiswrapper or ipw2200?
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PaulBredbury · Watchman Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 7310