Re: configuring interface & configuring MTA time out
On 06/13/2012 12:54 PM, Camaleón wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Jun 2012 12:32:55 -0400, Gilbert Sullivan wrote:
>
>> On 06/13/2012 10:43 AM, Camaleón wrote:
>>> On Mon, 11 Jun 2012 13:44:22 -0400, Gilbert Sullivan wrote:
>>>
>>> (...)
>>>
>>>> Until the recent update (a couple of weeks ago) of netscript which
>>>> removed ifupdown, the system just always booted quickly on any of its
>>>> various network locations. Since then, when I have set Wicd to connect
>>>> to one of the fixed IP address locations, the boot process halts for
>>>> one minute at two places -- the configuring interface line, and the
>>>> configuring MTA line. (I'm guessing the configuring MTA time out
>>>> happens because the configuring interface time out precedes it.)
>>>
>>> Yes, that's likely what happens. The MTA daemon has to wait until it
>>> gets a valid networking configuration and can delay the booting process
>>> when there's a problem with it.
>>>
>>>
>> Thank you, Camaleón, for getting back to me.
>>
>> I may not have stated my situation very clearly. This is a notebook that
>> travels with me from site to site. At some sites DHCP is not used, and
>> I'm assigned a fixed IP address.
>
> (...)
>
> How are you doing that? Are you using some kind of dhcp-client fallback
> configuration mode to provide the network card settings manually when no
> DHCP server can be contacted at the defined interval? Or are you using
> WICD capabilities to configure the network?
>
> This is important because WICD looks for files different from the usual
> ifup method so we first need to know how is your network interface being
> configured and what can be tweaked from what files.
>
Yup, I'm using Wicd. When I'm ready to leave one location to trave to
the next, I choose the next network's configuration from within Wicd.
With the aforementioned /etc/network/interfaces file (set to use DHCP)
Wicd always has me set up right when I come up to the desktop. The only
difference between now and then (more than about two weeks ago) is that
now, it takes two extra minutes to get to the desktop -- but *only* when
I'm connecting at one of the sites that makes me used a fixed IP
address. That's because something has changed in the relationship
between the netscript (?) package and Wicd, I guess.
>> It is only at those sites where I experience the two 60 second delays
>> (network interfaces, MTA) in boot process. I'm just confused as to why
>> the delays just started happening. I've had the /etc/network/interfaces
>> file configured that way for years, and the boot process at all sites
>> -- whether using fixed IP address or DHCP -- was always quick. No
>> timeouts.
>
> Okay, I think I see now the problem (thanks for clarifying!): networking
> service timeouts -or takes too much time- because no DHCP server is in
> place and then "it does something" that's what we need to analyze to see
> a way on how to speed it up. Is that right? :-)
Yup, that's it. I know my situation is something of a corner case, but
I'd bet that there are other folks affected by it, too.
As I said, I could just have Wicd (if it will cooperate) switch in an
appropriate /etc/network/interfaces file when it runs, but that seems
like a clumsy way to handle this.
I was just wondering if anyone thought it might be a good idea to find a
way to fiddle with the timeouts instead of switching out the interfaces
file. I don't know whether or not changing timeouts is a good plan.
If no one could suggest a way to do that, I was planning on just
figuring out how to do the simple-minded thing by having Wicd switch the
configuration file for me each time I change its network setting.
Best regards,
Gilbert
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