Freddy Freeloader wrote: > The first time I run "/etc/init.d/networking restart" after a reboot I > get the same message I would if I ran "ifdown eth0" about eth0 releasing > its dhcp address, and I no longer have network connectivity, i.e. the > /etc/init.d/networking script does not seem to call ifup -a to restart > all network connections. (I have only one nic on this computer.) To > get network connectivity back I must manually run "ifup etho".
The problem is rooted in Bug#300937. It is about how to handle hotplug network devices. http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=300937 The default Etch installation configures networking such as you are seeing now. But let's back into it from the side. The configuration is: allow-hotplug eth0 You noted "ifup -a". But /etc/init.d/networking does call ifup -a. But looking at the man page for ifup shows: -a, --all If given to ifup, affect all interfaces marked auto. So 'ifup -a' only brings up interfaces marked auto but a default Etch installation sets all interfaces to allow-hotplug. Now you can see why restarting networking does not bring up networking. And in the man page for interfaces it says: Lines beginning with the word "auto" are used to identify the physical interfaces to be brought up when ifup is run with the -a option. (This option is used by the system boot scripts.) ... Lines beginning with "allow-" are used to identify interfaces that should be brought up automatically by various subsytems. This may be done using a command such as "ifup --allow=hotplug eth0 eth1", which will only bring up eth0 or eth1 if it is listed in an "allow-hotplug" line. > My question is, is this behavior by design, or have I stumbled across a > bug? I don't know the full history behind this but looking at the Bug#300937 I assume the design is that network events are now moved from boot time action to network event time action to support hotplug network interfaces. Looking in /usr/share/doc/udev/README.Debian.gz I see: After receiving events about network interfaces, net.agent will call ifupdown using the --allow=hotplug option. This makes the program act only on interfaces marked with the "allow-hotplug" statement. E.g: "allow-hotplug eth0" instead of the usual "auto eth0". I have not researched further what it would take to trigger udev to restart networking but I presume there is a path through it that would do so. To return to the previous behavior you may change the allow-hotplug stanzas into auto stanzas and then restarting networking will restart the network interface. I would welcome further information on this area. Bob -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]