Which adapter is which?

[gsanderson]

We have a recurring nightmare every time we add a NIC to a Raptor firewall box. Raptor seems to renumber the network interfaces such that none of the Raptor interface entities are associated with the same NIC port any longer. We then go through a long and painful trial and error routine to re-establish which physical port is now connected to which Raptor interface.

I know we must be missing some key concept here, because this can't possibly be as difficult as it seems. We have one Raptor box that has eight NIC ports on it, for a variety of DMZ situations, and the number of permutations is getting mind-boggling.

 

[freakylinks]

This is actually real easy. Open base components. Then interfaces..

This is your interfaces. Now, The OS, not Raptor decides which interface is which, when you add one. So, you should be able to figure out which interface is owned by what address.

Once that is done, the interfaces tab will allow you to rename them to something you understand.

So.. Breakdown time.

1) You install a new Network Interface Car (From now on NIC). The Operating System has now decided which (Actually this is also based on the location of the nic, and hardware.. so on.. I hope you already know that.) interface has what IP address based on your network configuration. Then when booting up (AFTER install) the firewall the keeps them in the same spot, just calls them Interface 1, and so on..

2) In the interface tab, there is a sure fire way. You can rename the interfaces.. This can be ugly later when you upgrade, so another great way to do this is just to write them down out of that tab, and put them on your monitor.