Change wlan1 to wlan0

**Tom--d** · May 14th, 2008

Is it a simple process?

and how do I do it?

I have NO wlan0. Did, but not there. (was a usb wireless stick but got internal wireless card working)

Thanks,
Tom

**nixscripter** · May 14th, 2008

Generally, the device names are assigned by the drivers of the cards.

Why would you want to do it in the first place?

**Tom--d** · May 14th, 2008

No point. Just me being me.

**inportb** · May 14th, 2008

Originally Posted by nixscripter

Generally, the device names are assigned by the drivers of the cards.

Generally, device numbers are assigned by udev.

Try tweaking this file: /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
(remember to do this with superuser rights and make a backup)

If you need more help, please post the contents of that file.

**nixscripter** · May 15th, 2008

Originally Posted by inportb

Generally, device numbers are assigned by udev.

Oh yeah, udev. Doh!

However, I think the names of the interfaces are in fact assigned by the drivers (wlan, ra, eth, etc.)

Yes, inportb is right, they are numbered by ubev on Ubuntu.

I don't see why wlan1 isn't renamed wlan0 if the other device was removed anyway, unless udev is deciding to leave a hole for some reason.

**jetsam** · May 15th, 2008

Udev seemed to have the same behavior in this thread. I looked into it a little: that file (70-persistent-net.rules) has the ability to identify a hardware interface by mac address and/or other identifying text from the hardware identifiers. Then it assigns the interface name. Even when you remove the interface hardware from the system, it seems that udev keeps that interface name assigned to that specific device only and doesn't clear its entry automatically.

This is good behavior if you have a usb device which you're often plugging in and unplugging. Maybe that's why they set it up that way; I'm just speculating, though.

I think that interface names are actually pretty flexible and you could call your eth0 interface xanadu if you wanted to. (Don't do this. I just tried it and it works, but it breaks secondary software like network-admin and iptraf.

) It's best to stick to the conventional names. The drivers may have something to do with it as well. I'm not sure how udev originally decides what name to give a particular device.

**kevdog** · May 15th, 2008

Why dont you just post your udev file here?

**Tom--d** · May 17th, 2008

I have now changed it

Thanks.

It still kept my old wireless MAC address. Deleted it and changed my current wireless card to wlan0

Easy

**nobodyfamous** · January 18th, 2013

sorry to dig up an old thread, but. . . I just put a new card in my laptop, and yes, it is wlan1 rather then wlan0 - is it necessary that I change this back to wlan0? (it is the internal card, so the old one will never be used again) The only place I noticed an issue was with my "netmon" screenlet, I had to update the device name (really not a problem) but will this cause issues with other software/hardware?