Hi...

I am using pve-network-interface-pinning to pin enp1s0, for instance, to eth0, eth1... and so on.
I have 9 nic each server.
But I need to change the hardware and after that, all nic turns back to previously name, like enp1s0, when I use ip a command.
If I try to change it back up eth0, I got this error:

pve-network-interface-pinning generate --interface  enp7s0  --target-name eth1
This will generate name pinning configuration for the interface 'enp7s0' - continue (y/N)?
y
could not resolve 52:54:00:9d:5d:1e to an existing interface at /usr/share/perl5/PVE/CLI/pve_network_interface_pinning.pm line 343, <STDIN> line 1.
could not resolve 52:54:00:4b:ae:f5 to an existing interface at /usr/share/perl5/PVE/CLI/pve_network_interface_pinning.pm line 343, <STDIN> line 1.
could not resolve 52:54:00:94:3a:9f to an existing interface at /usr/share/perl5/PVE/CLI/pve_network_interface_pinning.pm line 343, <STDIN> line 1.
could not resolve 52:54:00:29:26:c5 to an existing interface at /usr/share/perl5/PVE/CLI/pve_network_interface_pinning.pm line 343, <STDIN> line 1.
could not resolve 52:54:00:ee:b3:68 to an existing interface at /usr/share/perl5/PVE/CLI/pve_network_interface_pinning.pm line 343, <STDIN> line 1.
could not resolve 52:54:00:af:22:2f to an existing interface at /usr/share/perl5/PVE/CLI/pve_network_interface_pinning.pm line 343, <STDIN> line 1.
could not resolve 52:54:00:f3:81:08 to an existing interface at /usr/share/perl5/PVE/CLI/pve_network_interface_pinning.pm line 343, <STDIN> line 1.
could not resolve 52:54:00:4b:c1:2b to an existing interface at /usr/share/perl5/PVE/CLI/pve_network_interface_pinning.pm line 343, <STDIN> line 1.
could not resolve 52:54:00:31:c5:1f to an existing interface at /usr/share/perl5/PVE/CLI/pve_network_interface_pinning.pm line 343, <STDIN> line 1.
target-name already exists as link or pin!

So I need to understand where pve-network-interface-pinning store it's configuration.
Is there anyway to recreate the network interface pinning?

Thanks

They are stored in /usr/local/lib/systemd/network as link files with name 50-pve-<pnined_name>.link

Ah! I see...

pve01:/usr/local/lib/systemd/network# cat 50-pve-eth0.link
[Match]
MACAddress=52:54:00:4b:c1:2b
Type=ether

[Link]
Name=eth0

Thank you

Sorry!
It was right there in my face! Shame on me...

This will generate name pinning configuration for the interface 'enp1s0' - continue (y/N)?
y
Name for link 'enp1s0' (enx525400d99ca2) will change to 'eth0'
Generating link files
Successfully generated .link files in '/usr/local/lib/systemd/network/'
Updating /etc/pve/nodes/proxmox03/host.fw.new
Updating /etc/network/interfaces.new
Updating /etc/pve/sdn/controllers.cfg
Updating /etc/pve/sdn/fabrics.cfg
Successfully updated Proxmox VE configuration files.

Please reboot to apply the changes to your configuration

Sorry, but *why* is this configuration information being stored outside of /etc ?

Sorry, but *why* is this configuration information being stored outside of /etc ?

Any Proxmox dev have any answer to my question?

Iirc, one reason was to prevent clashes with potentially pre-existing configuration files in /etc. We could maybe implement specifiying the base path for the generated files to circumvent that and enable generation of the link files in /etc?

No real opinion for me, as long as all config files are under /etc somewhere for grepability, backupability, etc. And this file is generated by the installer so there shouldn't be any preexisting files?

AFAIK

is a good place for .link files - /etc/ really is the first place i would look for them.
(We've had it there since 7.x and still in 9.2; we pin manually with more insightful names than the pinning tool nowadays generates).

But the path the pinning tool currently uses is also expected according to the docs: https://manpages.debian.org/unstable/manpages-de/systemd.link.5.de.html

Die .link-Dateien werden aus den Dateien gelesen, die sich im Systemnetzwerkverzeichnis /usr/lib/systemd/network und /usr/local/lib/systemd/network [1], dem flüchtigen Laufzeitnetzwerkverzeichnis /run/systemd/network und dem lokalen Administrationsnetzwerkverzeichnis /etc/systemd/network befinden.

Oh my, thanks for pointing it out!
I did not notice this functionality when plying around with it when PVE9.0 was fresh! (Or it wasn't there when I checked it out). Deleted my above post.

I came here to ask the question about whether there is a good reason that I shouldn't move my .link files to /etc/systemd/network (which is where the man pages seem to suggest they should be anyway) so I was pleased to find this thread at the top of the forum when I arrived.

I can now revert to only having to backup /etc (previously /usr/local/lib/systemd/network was the only dir outside of /etc that I needed to backup) so that's wonderful.

+1 to the suggestion of making this the default location or giving the user the option.

And I came here after I installed PBS on top of an existing old-many-times-upgraded Debian install. The network interface wasn't initialised as it should. It turned out to be a different issue, but when I compared it to my new PBS install, I noticed that the ethernet device names were different. Grepping for "nic0" in /etc didn't find anything and I was very confused -- having seen the option to pin the network interface name during the install, which I accepted because I liked to keep my machines as default as possible to maximise their upgradability.

I should probably do a new install of Proxmox VE 9.2 into a VM and compare it to the default configuration on my many-times-upgraded PVE servers.