nameif(8) — Linux manual page

NAMEIF(8)          Linux System Administrator's Manual          NAMEIF(8)

NAME         top

       nameif - name network interfaces based on MAC addresses

SYNOPSIS         top

       nameif [-c configfile] [-s]
       nameif [-c configfile] [-s] interface macaddress

DESCRIPTION         top

       nameif renames network interfaces based on mac addresses.  When no
       arguments are given /etc/mactab is read.  Each line  of it
       contains an interface name and a Ethernet MAC address.  Comments
       are allowed starting with #.  Otherwise the interfaces specified
       on the command line are processed.  nameif looks for the interface
       with the given MAC address and renames it to the name given.

       When the -s argument is given all error messages go to the syslog.

       When the -c argument is given with a file name that file is read
       instead of /etc/mactab.

NOTES         top

       nameif should be run before the interface is up, otherwise it'll
       fail.

FILES         top

       /etc/mactab

BUGS         top

       Only works for Ethernet hardware address types.

       More modern alias name functions are available with the ip(8)
       command or management frameworks like udev(5) or netplan(5).

SEE AlSO         top

       Homepage of the net-tools project: 
       ⟨https://net-tools.sourceforge.io⟩

       ifconfig(8), ip(8)
       netplan(5), udev(5)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the net-tools (networking utilities) project.
       Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://net-tools.sourceforge.net/⟩.  If you have a bug report for
       this manual page, see ⟨http://net-tools.sourceforge.net/⟩.  This
       page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨git://git.code.sf.net/p/net-tools/code⟩ on 2026-01-16.  (At that
       time, the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2025-12-12.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

net-tools                       2025-09-10                      NAMEIF(8)

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