I have a fresh install of Fedora 17 installed, 64 bit. Everything works flawlessly, It connects to the internet automatically when I plug in the internet cable.
So I'm kind of confused when I issue this command:
el@defiant ~ $ ifconfig eth0
And I get the error:
eth0: error fetching interface information: Device not found
Device not found? Here is ifconfig:
ifconfig
I get this:
em1: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 192.168.1.102 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255
inet6 fe80::ea40:f2ff:fee1:58c prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20<link>
ether e8:40:f2:e1:05:8c txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 44753 bytes 51284267 (48.9 MiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 34222 bytes 4294174 (4.0 MiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
device interrupt 20 memory 0xf7d00000-f7d20000
lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING> mtu 16436
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 scopeid 0x10<host>
loop txqueuelen 0 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 5152 bytes 1263744 (1.2 MiB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 5152 bytes 1263744 (1.2 MiB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
So, it appears that someone has changed the old eth0
to em1
since earlier versions of Fedora (Fedora 8 is the last I know which used eth0
). If I do the command: ifconfig em1
then I get something similar to the old ifconfig eth0
. But why the name change?
My question is why was eth0
changed to em1
and what the heck does em
from em1
mean?
Best Answer
It's consistent network device naming.
The
em
means that the interface isem
bedded onto the motherboard. Other names apply for add-on cards:p#p#
names refer to PCI (and its modern derivatives) expansion cards, where the first number is the slot on the motherboard which they're plugged into, the second number is the port on the card (a card may contain multiple ports) and the third number, if present, is a virtual function number.If it really bothers you, you can rename the interface to anything you want.