ifplugd (or guessnet) stalls booting at "Configuring network interfaces ..."

["H.S." <hs.samix@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I just dist-upgraded a Dell Inspiron 5160 that was running 2.6.12 kernel
and Debian Unstable. After the upgrade(I recall hotplug was uninstalled
and udev upgraded), the laptop boot process now stalls at the
"Configuring network interfaces ..." step. Any idea what could be the
problem?

I tried booting into single user mode, but it stalls at the same point.

I was able to boot into Debian Unstable by making a change using a
Knoppix boot cd.

I had guessnet based setup in the laptop (the guessnet interfaces file
is listed in the PS below). At boot time, something seemed to be going
wrong with that. So I booted using Knoppix, mounted the / partition and
changed the /etc/network/interfaces so that eth0 was using dhcp protocol
(without using guessnet). I was then able to boot into Debian Unstable
without any problems.

But when I tried to use my "interfaces" file which used guessnet
scripts, the problem came back again and the machine stalled/hanged.
Rebooting the machine again gave a stall or hang at "Configuring network
interfaces ..." step. And reverting back to the dhcp protocal for eth0
worked.

Anybody has any idea why guessnet would give me this problem?
I have:
dhcp3-client  3.0.3-5   DHCP Client
dhcp3-common  3.0.3-5   Common files used by all the dhcp3* packages
guessnet      0.36-1    Guess which LAN a network device is connecte

thanks,
->HS

PS: In /etc/network, I have multiple interface files:
# ls -1 interfaces*
interfaces
interfaces.guessnet
interfaces.home-dhcp
interfaces.home-static
interfaces.pharma

where "interfaces" is a soft link to one of the other files. I had this
pointing to interfaces.guessnet so far (Other files were used before I
started using guessnet, and when I used each one depending where my
laptop was). Here is my guessnet based file (some IP address are masked
below):
##################################################################
~# cat /etc/network/interfaces.guessnet
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface

auto eth0

mapping eth0
script /usr/sbin/guessnet-ifupdown
map homedlink homelinux pharmalan
map default: homelinux

iface homedlink inet static
address 192.168.1.14
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.1
dns-nameservers x.y.z.q
up /etc/firewall/fw-desktop-multi-nics.sh start
test-peer address 192.168.1.1 source 192.168.1.14

iface homelinux inet dhcp
up /etc/firewall/fw-desktop-multi-nics.sh start
down /etc/firewall/fw-desktop-multi-nics.sh stop
#test-peer address 192.168.0.1


iface pharmalan inet static
address aa.bb.cc.dd
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway aa.bb.cc.ff
dns-nameservers aa.bb.cc.11 aa.bb.cc.22
up /etc/firewall/fw-desktop-multi-nics.sh start
down /etc/firewall/fw-desktop-multi-nics.sh stop
test-peer address aa.bb.cc.ff source aa.bb.cc.dd

##################################################################