debian-multi-nic-setup.txt

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my ASUS P5Q-Premium, running Debian 8.8, has four ethernet ports. i only need to
use one at a time.

the labels "eth0", "eth1", etc. are assigned to these ports in seemingly random
order, and whether the numbering starts at 0 or 1 seems to be determined by the
presence of some other random PCI device present on the board, so it's hard to
know which eth# you're plugging the cable into.

but i want to get the same MAC address no matter which eth# i'm using, so that i
can add a static DHCP mapping in my router for NAT purposes.
4 NICS -> 1 MAC -> 1 IP

so i did this:

	> apt-get install ifenslave
	> nano /etc/network/interfaces

and added these lines to "interfaces":

	allow-hotplug eth0
	allow-hotplug eth1
	allow-hotplug eth2
	allow-hotplug eth3
	allow-hotplug eth4

	auto bond0
	iface bond0 inet dhcp
			bond-slaves eth0 eth1 eth2 eth3 eth4
			bond-mode broadcast

and rebooted.

now any devices present from "eth0" to "eth4" are essentially treated as the
same NIC. they have the same MAC address and packets are broadcast across all
of them.

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