Re: networking.service: start operation timed out

[Jeremy Ardley <jeremy@ardley.org>]

On 27/8/22 6:06 am, Ross Boylan wrote:
> In Debian 11/bullseye my system keeps reporting timeouts while trying
> to bring up the first non-loopback interface.  According to ip, the
> interface actually is up, but ifup/down do not know that.  My 2nd
> interface is down, and there is no mention of attempting to bring it
> up in the logs.  I can bring up both interfaces after startup,
> suggesting there may be something special about the initial
> environment that is causing trouble, but I don't know what.
>
> I'd appreciate any suggestions about how to diagnose or cure the
> problem.  I have set VERBOSE=yes in /etc/default/networking
First of all ensure NetworkManager is really dead.

You should see

systemctl status NetworkManager
● NetworkManager.service
   Loaded: masked (Reason: Unit NetworkManager.service is masked.)
   Active: inactive (dead)

if not, use

systemctl disable NetworkManager

systemctl mask NetworkManager

Then ensure that only the really basics of networking are enabled

cat /etc/networki/interfaces

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system

# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# note subdirectory source statement is commented out

# source /etc/network/interfaces.d/*

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

At his stage the only thing you need to attend to is 
/etc/systemd/network files

In my case I have a single file

/etc/systemd/network/20-wired.network

Getting network changes to fully take may require a reboot after 
initially disabling NetworkManager and restricting /etc/network/interfaces

Then it is just a matter of configuring your network by editing your 
/etc/systemd/network/<configuration file(s)>

systemd-networkd does work reasonably well. It just requires a bit of study

--

Jeremy

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