Re: OpenSMTPD won't start as part of systemd

["Paul M. Foster" <paulf@quillandmouse.com>]

On 10/28/21 10:17 PM, David Wright wrote:
> On Thu 28 Oct 2021 at 21:34:26 (-0400), Paul M. Foster wrote:
> > On 10/28/21 5:11 PM, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > > On Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 04:42:52PM -0400, Paul M. Foster wrote:
> > > > This is just an annoyance, but it really shouldn't happen. As my system is
> > > > rebooting, and all the startup chatter echos to the screen, I notice that
> > > > OpenSMTPd fails to start. Once I'm logged in, I can start it manually with
> > > > no problem. When I look at the failure mode, it appears that it thinks the
> > > > "eno1" interface isn't functioning, so it can't monitor that interface.
> > > Are you bringing up eno1 with /etc/network/interfaces?  If so, make
> > > sure it's marked as "auto", not as "allow-hotplug".
> > Well, that's interesting. Here is my /etc/network/interfaces:
> >
> > ===
> > source /etc/network/interfaces.d/*
> > # The loopback network interface
> > auto lo
> > iface lo inet loopback
> > ===
> >
> > There's nothing in /etc/network/interfaces.d/ . This is a stock Debian
> > 11 install, so whatever's in this file hasn't been messed with. No
> > mention of eno1. However, it DOES come up. Any clues?
> Perhaps look at your logs and dmesg; and post how your networking is
> intended to come up.
>
> Cheers,
> David.

A lot to examine...

One thing stands out. There is an error of sorts in /etc/daemon.log:

Oct 26 17:44:05 dudley systemd-udevd[271]: 
/usr/lib/udev/rules.d/80-ifupdown.rules: 2 Unknown group 'netdev', ignoring

I "accidentally" deleted the "netdev" group a few days ago. I wonder if 
that's the reason.

Paul