I have a domestic headless server that boots from (and has the root filesystem in) a removable USB stick. I install it from my laptop (following this nice checklist) and edit the configuration files as required. Ideally I'd like to be able to fully configure the system while the USB stick is plugged into my laptop, so that once I plug it into the server, it'll boot straight to multi-user level with network up and SSH daemon running. My desired network configuration is very simple: it has a single integrated MOBO NIC which I want to configure statically.The main problem I've found is that I don't (reliably) know what interface name my NIC will get assigned. Up 'till now blindly using eth0 in /etc/network/interfaces has done the job, however last time I re-installed it switched to the Predictable Network Interface Names scheme, and I had to lug over the monitor & keyboard to log-in locally and troubleshoot the system.So how can I avoid myself such pain in the future?
Configure network card without knowing its name
debian
I think the easiest, practical solution is to revert to classical behavior.In the USB stick's bootloader config (so, in the grub2 config, for example), add the paramater net.ifnames=0 to the kernel command line.Continue using eth0 in /etc/network/interfaces.Given the situation you've described and the emphasis you placed on keeping things simple, this seems appropriate. Just note, ifupdown may get deprecated and you'll find /etc/network/interfaces will stop working in the future if you are too hasty with an update/upgrade. 