CentOS 6 Error Device eth0 Not Present

Published by Torry Crass on

In attempting to run a virtual appliance with VMWare I ran into a problem where the VA would not load the network.  It turns out that this is because of the developers not handling the configuration files to make everything virtual machine distributable.  So, if you see the error below, you probably have run into the same problem I have.

Typically you'll see this error after issuing the following command:

service network restart

Error:

Device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization

Now for the fix.  You need to edit the following file using your favorite text editor.  I use vi but if you're not familiar with it I would suggest that you use nano or pico (whichever is available) instead.

vi /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

Basically the problem is, this file contains what your new virtual appliance remembers of all the network adapters previously plugged in.  They probably don't exist anymore and should be removed.  You'll see entries similar to the one below.

# PCI device 0x15ad:0x07b0 (vmxnet3)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", DRIVERS=="?*", 
ATTR{address}=="00:50:56:ae:00:1a", 
ATTR{type}=="1", KERNEL=="eth*", NAME="eth0"

Now, for the important part.  To validate that you have the right network adapter, go into your virtual machine's settings and highlight the network adapter area, this should display a MAC address in the right hand side.  Match it with the appropriate entry in your file, this is the one you should keep.  The rest can go.

Once you have your entries updated make sure to update the NAME="" field on your current, active, network card to reflect the right device name, typically eth0.

Now save the file and that should hopefully take care of the card problem.

You may also need to change your network configuration.  On my CentOS appliance it's as simple as modifying the file below to match your network information.  On other appliances and operating systems this may vary.

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

After these changes it's best to reboot and that should do it for you.  If not, it's time to start digging through Google and posting to user groups.


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