The handling of ethernet devices seems to be unusual in that there are entries for them in /sys but not, as far as I can tell, in /dev (by default, anyway).
Another thing that might be causing trouble is that the ethernet device seems to be spread out among several devices as reported by udevinfo -a -p /sys/class/net/ethfast (for me). Probably this is related to the previous point. nameif (recommended in 10.7 of the Debian reference for persistent network names), for example, works on the names under /sys. It appears that some portion of the Debian network structure (e.g., references in /etc/network/interfaces) is keyed to the same names. This might explain why efforts to set device names in the usual udev way are ineffective; those names are in /dev, but the entries in /sys are being used by the rest of the networking system. I got bitten by the problem if erratic ethernet device naming. Although udev was designed to handle this, I used nameif as a run rule before the usual invocation of net.agent to solve it (I hope). I'm glad to see this problem is scheduled to be solved before release, because it's the kind of thing that would make most people throw up their hands in disgust and try another OS or blame their hardware. I spent a lot of time thinking the problem lay in my network drivers and new hardware before I realized what was going on. *If* the analysis above is correct--and it could easily be wrong, as it deals with a bunch of technology I understand poorly--it raises the question of why network devices are being handled differently from other ones. Perhaps this is an historical vestige that should be stripped away? Ross Boylan -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
