NM fails to connect when booting ?? -[not quite SOLVED]

[Bill Davidsen]

Michael J Gruber wrote:
> Todd Zullinger venit, vidit, dixit 18.03.2009 04:25:
>> William Case wrote:
>>> It has been reported by someone else as a medium level bug.  See:
>>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=470477
>> Or see the changelog of NetworkManager-0.7.0.99-3:
>>
>> * Mon Mar 09 2009 Dan Williams <dcbw at redhat.com> - 1:0.7.0.99-3
>> - Missing ONBOOT should actually mean ONBOOT=yes (rh #489422)
>>
>> Bug #489422 is "No network after last NM update"
>> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/489422
>>
>>> The bug comments gave me the following work around:
>>>
>>> The automatic wired network connection can be made to work by doing:
>>>
>>> "if and only if the flag ONBOOT in
>>> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 is set to "yes""
>>>
>>> My ifcfg-eth0 file had ONBOOT=no; I changed it to ONBOOT=yes and now my
>>> Internet connection is made automatically on boot.
>>>
>>> I would think that this is more than a medium level concern,
>>> particularly for new users of Fedora 10.
>> Well, the levels aren't really used my many maintainers (though maybe
>> they are for RHEL bugs, which 470477 is...).  But aside from that, the
>> NM release on Fedora fixes the bug that a missing ONBOOT parameter is
>> treated differently in NM than it was by the network service.  I can't
>> see how having ONBOOT=no and NM not starting that device could be
>> construed as an NM bug though.  It's perhaps a bug if some tool is
>> automatically writing the ONBOOT=no into the ifcfg file when it
>> shouldn't be.
> 
> I'm sorry I have to disagree here, for two reasons:
> 
> 1) People who installed F10 from DVD/CD have ONBOOT=no in their config
> because anaconda put it there. Their wired connections used to be
> brought up automatically by NM after logon, and this behaviour is
> *broken* now. A bugfix which breaks existing, desirable behaviour for
> existing users is a regression.
> 
Do you see ONBOOT=no as a bugfix, and if so what bug? Every install probably 
should ask if a NIC is present, and set to boot, never, or per-user via NM.

> 2) ONBOOT really ought to be about what's happening on boot only. If
> ONBOOT=no, don't bring up the interface during boot. If NM is allowed to
> manage the device, NM should bring it up after logon no matter what
> ONBOOT says. [1]
> 
That makes it hard to have devices defined which aren't brought up. It's more of 
an interference between anaconda, network and NM, but I don't think ignoring 
ONBOOT is a great way to solve it, not breaking the setting in the first place 
seems more useful.

> So, if you want to change the default, go ahead and change it
> consistently (anaconda+nm) for F11, but please don't break existing
> default F10 installations.
> 
> Michael
> 
> [1] NM used to list these devices as "auto eth0" with editable config.
> Now they are listed as "system eth0" which can't be edited. Maybe that
> is the real root of the new behaviour?
> 


-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot