Package: ifupdown Version: 0.8.35 Severity: normal There seem to be so many open bugs for ifupdown that it is not clear whether there is any point in reporting this, but perhaps it may help others.
I have encountered the unhelpful error message "RTNETLINK answers: File exists" on more than one machine but only on rare occasions. I seem now to discovered what is happening. I normally use ethernet, but occasionly wifi. The problem seems to be when I mistakely "ifup" on one interface, take it down, and then try to use (ifup) on the other interface. It looks as if ifdown is failing to clear a broadcast address, and trying to set up the new broadcast address gives this mysterious messages passed up from ip. The failure hapens when ip is called as in: ip addr add 192.168.0.7/255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255 dev eth0 label eth0 Deleting this manually with ip as:- ip addr del 192.168.0.7/255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.0.255 dev eth0 label eth0 and then rerunning ifup clears the problem. I have yet to look at the source, but I guess this should be simple to fix. ---------------------------------------------------- -- Package-specific info: --- /etc/network/interfaces: cat: /etc/network/interfaces: Permission denied /usr/share/bug/ifupdown: 20: cannot open /etc/network/interfaces: Permission denied --- up and down scripts installed: /etc/network/if-down.d: total 4 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1015 Apr 13 2015 avahi-autoipd lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 May 19 13:29 wpasupplicant -> ../../wpa_supplicant/ifupdown.sh /etc/network/if-post-down.d: total 8 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 23 May 7 19:47 avahi-daemon -> ../if-up.d/avahi-daemon -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 138 Sep 21 2018 chrony -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1409 Mar 24 2016 wireless-tools lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 May 19 13:29 wpasupplicant -> ../../wpa_supplicant/ifupdown.sh /etc/network/if-pre-up.d: total 12 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 344 Apr 28 2012 ethtool -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4191 Sep 15 2018 wireless-tools lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 May 19 13:29 wpasupplicant -> ../../wpa_supplicant/ifupdown.sh /etc/network/if-up.d: total 32 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 923 Apr 13 2015 avahi-autoipd -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 484 Mar 6 2013 avahi-daemon -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 290 Dec 21 2016 chrony -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 138 Sep 21 2018 chrony.dpkg-dist -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1685 Sep 22 2014 ethtool -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4937 Aug 22 2019 mountnfs -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 336 Jul 31 2010 slrn lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 May 19 13:29 wpasupplicant -> ../../wpa_supplicant/ifupdown.sh -- System Information: Debian Release: bullseye/sid APT prefers testing APT policy: (500, 'testing') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 5.6.0-1-686-pae (SMP w/2 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system) LSM: AppArmor: enabled Versions of packages ifupdown depends on: ii adduser 3.118 ii iproute2 5.6.0-1 ii libc6 2.30-8 ii lsb-base 11.1.0 Versions of packages ifupdown recommends: ii isc-dhcp-client [dhcp-client] 4.4.1-2.1+b2 Versions of packages ifupdown suggests: ii ppp 2.4.7-2+4.1+deb10u1 pn rdnssd <none> -- Configuration Files: /etc/default/networking changed: CONFIGURE_INTERFACES=no -- no debconf information
