Named interfaces in KVM

This post is here for Google and as a reminder to myself.

If you want your KVM virtual machines to have predictable virtual network interface names on the underlying host (rather than vnet0, vnet1, …) then you can use the following syntax in the arguments to virt-install:

--network=bridge=br0,model=virtio,target=the-interface-name-that-i-want

Various people out there advocate using virsh edit to post-fudge the XML definiton of the VM, but humans shouldn’t ever have to do that, and if your routing and firwalling relies on fixed interface names, much better to have them correct from the start.