Bug#1112013: cloud-init-network.service conflicts with dkms.service, and fails to start when both are installed

[Jeff Wong <awole20@gmail.com>]

Package: cloud-init
Version: 25.1.4-1
Severity: normal
X-Debbugs-Cc: awole20@gmail.com

Dear Maintainer,

I was attempting to update from Debian 11.6 to Debian 13.0 and noticed cloud-init config to be non-functional.
* hostname was not changed
* resolv.conf blank
* sshd keys not generating

I am installing both Debian 11.6 and 13.0 through Packer, and deployed through Terraform to a Proxmox server.
Both cloud-init and dkms were being installed via a preseed file.

Additionally, systemd reported a circular dependency on boot:

Job cloud-init-network.service/start deleted to break ordering cycle starting with sysinit.target/start
journalctl -b | egrep "Found":
Aug 25 01:29:21 test systemd[1]: networking.service: Found ordering cycle on network-pre.target/start
Aug 25 01:29:21 test systemd[1]: networking.service: Found dependency on dkms.service/start
Aug 25 01:29:21 test systemd[1]: networking.service: Found dependency on basic.target/start
Aug 25 01:29:21 test systemd[1]: networking.service: Found dependency on sysinit.target/start
Aug 25 01:29:21 test systemd[1]: networking.service: Found dependency on cloud-init-network.service/start
Aug 25 01:29:21 test systemd[1]: networking.service: Found dependency on networking.service/start

What worked was directly editing and deleting the line in
/usr/lib/systemd/system/cloud-init-network.service:

BEFORE=sysinit.target

cloud-init-network.service was able to go and all three symptoms were resolved.

On closer inspection with circular dependencies, I noticed dkms being installed in my preseed file.
dkms was also present in all instances of circular dependency logs.

Removing dkms from the preseed packages resolves the issue.
I do not need the package installed, but I am reporting regardless.

Thanks,
Jeff


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 13.0
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable-security'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 6.12.41+deb13-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE not set
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages cloud-init depends on:
ii  dhcpcd-base         1:10.1.0-11
ii  eject               2.41-5
ii  fdisk               2.41-5
ii  gdisk               1.0.10-2
ii  locales             2.41-12
ii  lsb-release         12.1-1
ii  netcat-openbsd      1.229-1
ii  procps              2:4.0.4-9
ii  python3             3.13.5-1
ii  python3-configobj   5.0.9-1
ii  python3-jinja2      3.1.6-1
ii  python3-jsonpatch   1.32-5
ii  python3-jsonschema  4.19.2-6
ii  python3-oauthlib    3.2.2-3
ii  python3-requests    2.32.3+dfsg-5
ii  python3-yaml        6.0.2-1+b2
ii  util-linux          2.41-5

Versions of packages cloud-init recommends:
ii  cloud-guest-utils  0.33-1
ii  eatmydata          131-2
ii  sudo               1.9.16p2-3

Versions of packages cloud-init suggests:
pn  btrfs-progs      <none>
ii  e2fsprogs        1.47.2-3+b3
pn  python3-passlib  <none>
pn  xfsprogs         <none>

-- no debconf information