Predictable Interface Names

Starting with version Talos 1.5, network interfaces are renamed to predictable names same way as systemd does that in other Linux distributions.

The naming schema enx78e7d1ea46da (based on MAC addresses) is enabled by default, the order of interface naming decisions is:

• firmware/BIOS provided index numbers for on-board devices (example: eno1)
• firmware/BIOS provided PCI Express hotplug slot index numbers (example: ens1)
• physical/geographical location of the connector of the hardware (example: enp2s0)
• interfaces’s MAC address (example: enx78e7d1ea46da)

The predictable network interface names features can be disabled by specifying net.ifnames=0 in the kernel command line.

Note: Talos automatically adds the net.ifnames=0 kernel argument when upgrading from Talos versions before 1.5, so upgrades to 1.5 don’t require any manual intervention.

“Cloud” platforms, like AWS, still use old eth0 naming scheme as Talos automatically adds net.ifnames=0 to the kernel command line.

Single Network Interface

When running Talos on a machine with a single network interface, predictable interface names might be confusing, as it might come up as enxSOMETHING which is hard to address. There are two ways to solve this:

• disable the feature by supplying net.ifnames=0 to the initial boot of Talos, Talos will persist net.ifnames=0 over installs/upgrades.

• use device selectors:

  machine:
    network:
      interfaces:
        - deviceSelector:
            busPath: "0*" # should select any hardware network device, if you have just one, it will be selected
          # any configuration can follow, e.g:
          addresses: [10.3.4.5/24]