Editing Ethernet Device Configuration (section)

== CentOS 7 ==
This process was extracted from a stackexchange article:  https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/205010/centos-7-rename-network-interface-without-rebooting

From the article:

"I have confirmed ... that simply changing the name and device of the interface [in] /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 (and renaming the file) will cause the device to be named correctly as long as the hwaddr= field is included in the configuration file." 

So ... at this point, edit the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-<oldname> file:

* change DEVICE to <newname>
* change NAME to <newname>
* add HWADDR with the MAC address of the interface
* rename the file to ifcfg-<newname>

At this point it is cleanest if you reboot -- and then make sure everything is connected properly.  If you can't reboot, at least restart the network with systemctl.  Don't forget to update any other config files that contain interface names to reflect the new names.