Description of enhancement: Add option to look at the ethernet (or other network media) link state, so that pump won't just sit there waiting for a bootp/dhcp response from an unconnected ethernet card. This would make life a lot nicer for those with machines which are not always connected to a network, like portable machines.
I don't think there is a way to do this for all cards. A better solution may be to allow the user to Ctrl-C doing the broadcast/wait for DHCP server response phase.
I believe a "link" indicator is always available for twisted-pair type network cabling systems, but not for the (older) coaxial cabling systems or some "exotic" variants. Of course, making the request sequence interruptable would not be a bad idea in any case. In the longer run, I would like to see the network card link state to work a bit like the PC cards currently work: when the link comes up, the machine's network state is reconfigured appropriately. All this should of course be configurable, so as not to disrupt things for users who do not want this kind of behavior.
This is handled before pump gets called now