Networking with Upstart and sysvinit scripts

[Christian Roessner]

Hi,

> Hi Christian! Glad to hear from you again!
> 
of course :) I am still alive :)

> This is fixed in Ubuntu 11.10 and later.
> 
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dhcp3/+bug/580319
> 
> We do not boot to runlevel 2 unless either all "auto" interfaces from
> /etc/network/interfaces are up, or 120 seconds have passed since lo
> was brought up. This gives ample time for any DHCP or heavy static
> configurations/bridge/bonded/etc configurations to finish, but will
> continue the boot in case you have listed an interface there that is
> broken or will never come up.
> 
That is really great to hear! I really was afraid, how this would continue in future releases. For me, this sounds like a great idea with the runlevel/120s thing.

What I miss in interfaces is a better ipv6 support. I find it somewhat weird to configure multiple addresses like this:

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
 address     88.198.80.228
 netmask     255.255.255.255
 gateway     88.198.61.177
 pointopoint 88.198.61.177

 post-up  /bin/ip neigh replace to 88.198.61.177 lladdr 2c:6b:f5:8a:72:84 nud permanent dev ${IFACE}
 pre-down /bin/ip neigh del to 88.198.61.177 lladdr 2c:6b:f5:8a:72:84 nud permanent dev ${IFACE}

iface eth0 inet6 static
 address   2a01:4f8:131:1081:88:198:80:228
 netmask   64
 gateway   2a01:4f8:131:1080::1
 pre-up    /bin/ip -6 route add 2a01:4f8:131:1080::1 dev ${IFACE}
 post-up   /bin/ip -6 route add 2000::/3 via 2a01:4f8:131:1080::1 dev ${IFACE}

auto eth0:0
iface eth0:0 inet static
 # mail.roessner-net.de
 address   88.198.80.230
 netmask   255.255.255.248
 broadcast 88.198.80.231

iface eth0:0 inet6 static
 # mail.roessner-net.de
 address   2a01:4f8:131:1081:88:198:80:230
 netmask   64

There are several things that are not optimal. IPv6 are not aliases. A second way of configuring them was to add post-up stuff.

I know, this might look like off-topic, but network configuration is part of Upstart and if the basic configuration makes trouble, you will have problems n the whole boot process.

So I would suggest to optimize network configuration in general.

I have a dozen of configurations, even with bonding/vlan mixtures, where boot process is really critical. Especially in the latter case, where you use bonding and stuff in HA setups. If the boot process is not 100% stable, the whole HA is unstable. And this on a LTS release.

> Anyway, give 11.10 a try, its possible we will backport something to
> lucid, but no guarantees, as its a rather large change in the way we
> treat /etc/network/interfaces, and it has not been popular with everyone,
> as there are some people abusing /etc/network/interfaces and this causes
> their system to take 2 minutes extra too boot.


I can not easily give 11.10 a try, because most systems are really production systems (and some of the customers do not have testing environments). I only could give it a try on my own server, but then I would have to upgrade 11 servers at once, because they have a lot of dependencies with services to each other (postgres backport, LDAP nackport, ...).

If there was a chance to have a backport package for 11.10, I could test it on individual servers and give feedback to you. Even, if there was a testing PPA, I would test it for you, bt PLEASE do not force me for upgrades right now. That really would be pain ;)

Best wishes and thanks that you answered me. I was happy to hear especially from you, Clint, again :)

Best wishes
Christian
---
Roessner-Network-Solutions
Bachelor of Science Informatik
Nahrungsberg 81, 35390 Gießen
F: +49 641 5879091, M: +49 176 93118939
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