Ubuntu seems to cope with swapping eth0/eth1 etc. I'm not sure how, but according to a Debian rant (along the lines of "why was this crappy Ubuntu patch accepted into Debian"), it does a swap on the names - ie eth0 -> eth0-temp, eth1 -> eth0, eth0-temp -> eth1. Just like you learned in programming-school.
This should mean you can define the order to whatever you want, and it will cope. I have heard about massive failures though, so be careful.
I was wondering if that would work as that was the only way I could think of but hadn't tested that idea yet. I should look into that because some parts of the system e.g. NetworkManager persist in using eth* and won't use my lan* devices.... -- Ian McDonald Web: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4 Blog: http://imcdnzl.blogspot.com WAND Network Research Group Department of Computer Science University of Waikato New Zealand