[Solved] Wireless interface name keeps changing

ratcheer · 2014-04-14 21:50:51

When I was first configuring my wireless interface, its name was wlp6s0. It was that through several boot cycles. A few days ago, it would not come up. When I investigated, I found that the name had changed to wlan0. I thought, ok, and simply edited my wpa_supplicant startup script to use that name. So, that worked for a while, but a few minutes ago, the script failed again and, sure enough, the interface name is back to wlp6s0, again. I am not doing anything that I know of that would cause it to change.

What is going on? I don't care what the interface name is, but I would like it to remain the same. Is there something that can be done to keep it from changing?

Tim

Last edited by ratcheer (2014-04-17 20:18:30)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2014-04-14 22:47:29

Mine does that sometimes too...
This behaviour can be disabled by adding

net.ifnames=0

in your kernel command line, or mask udev's rule file:

ln -s /dev/null /etc/udev/rules.d/80-net-setup-link.rules

See here for more on this

ratcheer · 2014-04-15 01:59:13

Thank you.

Tim

Head_on_a_Stick · 2014-04-15 12:28:02

Glad to help Tim; mark this thread as [SOLVED] to help others in this situation

Inxsible · 2014-04-15 15:49:51

wlp6s0 is the new "predictive" naming convention. So technically it should never change. The question is, is this wireless card a USB wireless card? and if so are you connecting it to different USB ports because that will definitely give you a different name each time.

My built in wireless card in my laptop has not changed its name across multiple reboots and no its not named wlan0

ratcheer · 2014-04-17 20:17:42

Inxsible, no, it is a PCI card. I have booted Arch twice, today. One time it got wlan0, the other time wlp6s0. I ended up just creating two scripts, wlan0_start and wlp6s0_start

Head_on_a_Stick, I will mark the thread as solved. I have not yet gotten around to trying to implement the suggested change, though. I hate editing the linux command, so I will try putting it as a module OPTIONS statement.

Thank you,
Tim

Inxsible · 2014-04-17 20:49:11

ratcheer wrote:

Inxsible, no, it is a PCI card. I have booted Arch twice, today. One time it got wlan0, the other time wlp6s0. I ended up just creating two scripts, wlan0_start and wlp6s0_start

That is very strange that PCI cards would keep changing names between reboots. Maybe you should investigate that to figure out what's going on. Check the dmesg and journalctl after each reboot and see what the interface is named as. Maybe that will give you some clues as to what "external" program is responsible in naming the interfaces.

Photor · 2014-04-18 15:27:40

Hello Inxsible,

I can promote ratcheer's statement. I have moved my laptop from Debian to Archlinux some days ago. And I see something similar with naming of my LAN interface: sometimes it is called "enp0s25" and sometimes "eth0" (maybe when IP is aquired using dhcpcd - just an observation, not more).

At the same time the WiFi interface is called "wlp3s0", so, udev works. Have not looked deeper into WiFi-setup so far.

Ciao,

Photor

t3kk3n · 2014-04-18 20:10:08

I use persistent udev rules to circumvent this; For reference - https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ud … vice_names

I mention this because I had a similar issue, and the udev rules I created have fixed this permanently for me.

Ninja edit - I meant to post the following link, but both links are references for what I'm trying to say. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ne … vice_names

Last edited by t3kk3n (2014-04-18 20:11:29)

Inxsible · 2014-04-18 21:53:31

you don't need any udev rules if you simply add

net.ifnames=0

in your kernel line. I think that if you have that in your kernel line, your interfaces will always be named eth0, eth1.... for ethernet and wlan0, wlan1.... for wireless.

t3kk3n · 2014-04-18 23:39:37

Inxsible wrote:

you don't need any udev rules if you simply add
net.ifnames=0
in your kernel line. I think that if you have that in your kernel line, your interfaces will always be named eth0, eth1.... for ethernet and wlan0, wlan1.... for wireless.

Ahh ok. I tried this once before and it didn't work. I shall test this again, maybe I did something wrong. Thanks!

Arch Linux

#1 2014-04-14 21:50:51

[Solved] Wireless interface name keeps changing

#2 2014-04-14 22:47:29

Re: [Solved] Wireless interface name keeps changing

#3 2014-04-15 01:59:13

Re: [Solved] Wireless interface name keeps changing

#4 2014-04-15 12:28:02

Re: [Solved] Wireless interface name keeps changing

#5 2014-04-15 15:49:51

Re: [Solved] Wireless interface name keeps changing

#6 2014-04-17 20:17:42

Re: [Solved] Wireless interface name keeps changing

#7 2014-04-17 20:49:11

Re: [Solved] Wireless interface name keeps changing

#8 2014-04-18 15:27:40

Re: [Solved] Wireless interface name keeps changing

#9 2014-04-18 20:10:08

Re: [Solved] Wireless interface name keeps changing

#10 2014-04-18 21:53:31

Re: [Solved] Wireless interface name keeps changing

#11 2014-04-18 23:39:37

Re: [Solved] Wireless interface name keeps changing

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