Broken eth0 when cloning Linux instances in Parallels / VMWare

When cloning virtual Linux instances, Parallels and VMWare pick a new random MAC address for the Ethernet adapter. The Linux udev system keeps track of MAC address to Ethernet device mappings in a persistent rule file located (in the case of Gentoo) here:

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

If you clone a Linux instance, the kernel will boot and recognize the new MAC address, increment the eth0 device assigning the new MAC as eth1. That's probably not what you want to have happen. The easy fix is to just delete that file and reboot causing the udev system to rewrite the file with the new MAC as eth0.

Adding this to the list, when creating a master Linux instance that you intend to clone, you should blow this file away along with /etc/ssh/*key* so the newly cloned copies will find their eth0 and build a unique set of ssh keys.

Thanks to Vantoft for the hint on this.

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