Bug 136944

Summary:	DHCP client should run in the background
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Florian Effenberger <floeff>
Component:	initscripts	Assignee:	Dave Jones <davej>
Status:	CLOSED DUPLICATE	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	3	CC:	barryn, pfrields
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2006-02-21 19:06:35 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Florian Effenberger 2004-10-23 18:32:49 UTC

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Opera/7.60 (Windows NT 5.1; U; de)

Description of problem:
The DHCP client should run in the background. When powering on the 
system without a network cable connected it takes quite a long timeout 
value until one can logon.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Boot system without networking cable connected.

Additional info:

Comment 1 Barry K. Nathan 2004-10-25 06:32:39 UTC

What kind of network card do you have? (I wonder if the long timeout
is because the driver is failing to recognize that there is no link.)

Perhaps doing DHCP in the background could be implemented as an
option, but the option of keeping it in the foreground *must* remain.
DHCP can change the machine's hostname, and if (for instance) X
happens to start before DHCP finishes and the hostname changes, it can
wreak havoc. There may be some network daemons that also need the
network link to already be up before they start, too. (For instance,
it's desirable to have network time stuff up and running before
anybody logs in, for the sake of having accurate timestamps in system
logs.)

Comment 2 Florian Effenberger 2004-10-25 16:03:48 UTC

Okay, that is a point. However, allowing the backgrounding as an
option would be nice. The docs then should contain that hostname
setting is NOT recommended via DHCP.

I have a Intel PRO/1000 Mobile Connection card.

Comment 3 Bill Nottingham 2004-10-25 19:34:47 UTC

Where do you specifically see delays?

There are checks in the initscripts; it will not run dhclient if there
is no link seen. But there could be driver bugs that imply the
presence of a link when there isn't one.

Comment 4 Florian Effenberger 2004-10-25 19:44:24 UTC

I started my ThinkPad T42p, it *HAD* a link. However, there was no
DHCP server as it was at home and so it took me about 60 seconds until
I could boot on.

Maybe an option like "Press Ctrl-C to skip DHCP search" would be an idea?

Comment 5 Bill Nottingham 2004-10-25 21:33:01 UTC


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 120427 ***

Comment 6 Red Hat Bugzilla 2006-02-21 19:06:35 UTC

Changed to 'CLOSED' state since 'RESOLVED' has been deprecated.