I've got a saucy server with a lot of NICs and they end up with weird names like "rename19". I know interface names can be changed by modifying the /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules file. The first clue that something is wrong is that that file did not exist even though it's supposed to be created automatically. So I decided to write my own based on advice from Linux From Scratch:

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:06:00.0", NAME="eth0" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:06:00.1", NAME="eth1" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:06:00.2", NAME="eth2" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:06:00.3", NAME="eth3" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:0c:00.0", NAME="mezz0" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:0c:00.1", NAME="mezz1" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:1b:00.0", NAME="slot1a" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:1b:00.1", NAME="slot1b" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:20:00.0", NAME="slot2a" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:20:00.1", NAME="slot2b" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:11:00.0", NAME="slot3a" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:11:00.1", NAME="slot3b" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:8b:00.0", NAME="slot4a" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:8b:00.1", NAME="slot4b" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:90:00.0", NAME="slot5a" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:90:00.1", NAME="slot5b" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:95:00.0", NAME="slot6a" ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="net", BUS=="pci", KERNELS=="0000:95:00.1", NAME="slot6b"

(I'm matching on PCI IDs instead of MAC addresses because I have multiple identical machines that I want to apply this configuration to.)

After rebooting, nothing has changed. It's like these rules aren't even being read. There's not much going on in dmesg either:

$ dmesg | grep udev [ 3.196629] systemd-udevd[323]: starting version 204 [ 6.719140] systemd-udevd[550]: starting version 204 [ 38.695050] init: udev-fallback-graphics main process (1658) terminated with status 1