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

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

Derek Broughton wrote:
> H. S. wrote:
> 
> 
>>On 10/15/05, H. S. <hs.samix@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>On 10/15/05, Derek Broughton <news@pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>>I can't help with guessnet, but I wonder why you think ifplugd could be
>>>
>>>I don't know for sure. But in the past, I had a similar problem (boot
>>>stall) and the problem was solved by putting HOTPLUG_INTERFACES="eth0" in
>>>/etc/default/ifplugd.
> 
> 
> If it's really a hotplug interface (ie, PC-card or USB),
> then /etc/init.d/networking may stall if the interface is set to "auto"
> in /etc/network/interfaces.
> 
>>>Here is what the boot process, that has hanged while using
>>>interfaces.guessnet based interfaces script, show on the screen:
>>>Configureing network interfaces... guessnet: Missing mac at line 26: only
>>>check for the ip
>>>guessnet: Missing mac at line 29: only check for the ip
>>>guessnet: 2 candidates found in input
>>>guessnet: Guessnet 0.36 starting...
>>>guessnet: Trying MII detection
> 
> ...
> 
>>I just checked the logs in /var/log after rebooting into Debain Unstable
>>(using dhcp, not guessnet) and found that there are no logs between the
>>time I shutdown the machine to boot using guessnet and the time I rebooted
>>the machine using dhcp. So apparently, when the machine hangs while trying
>>to use guessnet/ifplugd, log enteries are not being entered. Does this
>>make sense?
> 
> 
> Except that ifplugd isn't running, yet...
> 
> Try removing "auto eth0" from the /etc/network/interfaces file.  Whether
> it's a hotplug interface or not, once ifplugd _does_ start, it should try
> to bring it up using "ifup eth0", which will get into the guessnet script.

(repeating reply to this thread too; the thread seesm to have broken for
some reason)
For some reason, after upgrading today (which included quite a bit of
xorg and udev - 0.070-5) it seems to be working properly now. The hang
up at boot time has stopped from happening.

Just as an excercise, I tried reconfiguring exim4 (dpkg-reconfigure
exim4-config) and tried two options separately:
1. no configuration for now
2. minimal dns? No and then Yes. (last step)
All these changes did not have any affect on booting, all worked.

For the record, "auto eth0" does not appear in my interfaces file
anymore. Haven't tried by including it again. But yesterday boot process
was hanging in either case.

So it seems like udev upgrading seems to have solved the problem (Now
that I come to think of it, udev seems to have caused quite a bit of
problem in the recent months). Of course, I can't know for sure what the
problem really was.

thanks to all,
->HS