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From my understanding, Arch Linux uses Consistent Network Device Naming where the network devices are no longer named eth0, eth1, etc.

I use the proprietary MATLAB software which requires a device eth0 for activation. As a work around they suggest turning off consistent network device naming here. I don't think this will work in Arch, but maybe I am wrong, and I am not sure that is a good idea even if it does work.

Is it possible to create a dummy eth0 device to fool the MATLAB activation software? Note that this is not intended to, and I don't believe that it does, violate any licensing agreements with MATLAB/The MathWorks.

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2
  • 6 years later, changed enp0s31f6 to eth0 and matlab activates. – ron Nov 23 '19 at 17:09
  • nmcli connection modify enp0s31f6 connection.interface-name eth0 – ron Nov 23 '19 at 17:09
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Have you tried creating a blank /etc/udev/rules.d/80-net-name-slot.rules?

Since Udev v197, udev has implemented predictable network interface names, by creating a blank file in that path then rebooting, you should have your interface names back to what they were.

Reference: Predictable Network Interface Names

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4

Short-term solution:

% sudo modprobe dummy
% sudo ip l set dev dummy0 name MyEth11
% sudo ip ad ad 192.168.255.254/30 dev MyEth11
% ip ad show dev MyEth11
14: MyEth11: <BROADCAST,NOARP> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN 
    link/ether 6e:73:12:ad:db:8e brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.255.254/30 scope global MyEth11
% sudo ip l set MyEth11 up
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4
  • Interesting. But how is this interface connected to the real world? The application probably binds to this interface (or its address). – Hauke Laging Apr 29 '13 at 12:02
  • For MATLAB I don't need to bring the dummy interface up, but I did need to clone my mac address with ip link set dev MyEth11 address xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx. My guess is bringing the dummy interface up would cause major havoc. Can I add this as a script in /etc/profile.d/ to make it persistent? – StrongBad Apr 29 '13 at 12:34
  • This can be a script, of course, placed, for e. g., into /etc/rc.local. But I said "single term" intentionally meaning that different distros have different "proper" ways to set such things up. – poige Apr 29 '13 at 15:22
  • And nope, having two NICs with the same MAC addresses, but in different network segments isn't a havoc. – poige Apr 29 '13 at 15:23
4

Since udev v209 this is done the following way:

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

See also, Predictable Network Interface Names - I don't like this, how do I disable this?

NOTE: In that same section a couple of other methods are mentioned as well:

You basically have four options:

  1. You disable the assignment of fixed names, so that the unpredictable kernel names are used again. For this, simply mask udev's rule file for the default policy: 

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

  2. You create your own manual naming scheme, for example by naming your interfaces "internet0", "dmz0" or "lan0". For that create your own .link files in /etc/systemd/network/, that choose an explicit name or a better naming scheme for one, some, or all of your interfaces. See systemd.link(5) for more information.

You pass the net.ifnames=0 on the kernel command line

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