[Bug 713385] Re: netcfg/choose_interface=auto fails to find the right interface

[Adam Koczur]

Colin, with all the respect, but I think it rather should be treated
with some higher priority. I am currently trying to deploy a batch of
new servers and because of this issue, the process cannot be fully
automated - it keeps asking me to choose networking interface, no matter
what value is assigned to 'd-i netcfg/choose_interface select'. It might
not be a problem for someone how deploys one box a year. Not to say,
that the Red Hat guy, who is sitting next to me, keeps laughing saying
how professional and enterprise grade Ubuntu is. I think debian
installer should be fixed / finished properly, at some point, as the
disk partitioner is broken, too. I know it is the other issue, but try
to preseed some more complex partition schema. This is actually edging
to depressing...

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/713385

Title:
  netcfg/choose_interface=auto fails to find the right interface

Status in “netcfg” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: netcfg

  Under some circumstances, netcfg may not be able to find the right
  interface to run dhclient on when netcfg/choose_interface is set to
  auto.  It looks like the way choose_interface=auto works is that
  ethtool finds the lowest numbered interface that reports a link, and
  runs dhclient on that interface.  If no interface with a link is
  found, it tries only eth0.

  I'm hitting a problem on a number of servers that have one or two
  Broadcom BCM5708 interfaces *and* two Intel gigabit interfaces.  If
  the network connection is plugged in to the BCM5708, the install will
  often fail to find a network with netcfg/choose_interface=auto.

  The problem is that the BCM5708 doesn't report link up until you try
  to send traffic over it.  So none of the interfaces on the server
  report having a link, and netcfg tries dhcp on just eth0.  Depending
  on the order the network modules have been loaded, eth0 may be the
  BCM5708 or it may be the Intel.  If eth0 is the Intel, d-i attempts to
  run dhclient on the wrong interface, and it fails.

  I think a reasonable solution to this problem would be for netcfg to
  attempt dhclient on all interfaces until one succeeds.  Or perhaps it
  should do this only when no interfaces report a link.  Either way, I
  don't think we can rely entirely on link status, because not all NIC
  report this correctly.

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