Description of problem: NICs with the operstate 'down' can't be activated with netcf. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): Bug was introduced in version 0.2.1 (git commit 012e2169dfd904520ecac65553ccdd265537351f). Version 0.2.0 works as expected. How reproducible: 1. ncftool define with: <?xml version="1.0"?> <interface type="ethernet" name="eth5"> <start mode="onboot"/> <protocol family="ipv4"> <ip address="192.168.0.5" prefix="24"/> </protocol> </interface> 2. ncftool ifup eth5 Actual results: If eth5 is not physically up (operstate = 'down') the following error message is displayed although the nic was configured correctly (ip address was attached to eth5): Interface eth5 bring-up failed! error: unspecified error error: interface eth5 failed to become active - possible disconnected cable.
This bug appears to have been reported against 'rawhide' during the Fedora 19 development cycle. Changing version to '19'. (As we did not run this process for some time, it could affect also pre-Fedora 19 development cycle bugs. We are very sorry. It will help us with cleanup during Fedora 19 End Of Life. Thank you.) More information and reason for this action is here: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping/Fedora19
Looking back through old bugs, and the behavior described here is intentional, as per Bug 844578. netcf will not consider an interface to be successfully started until both the IFF_UP and IFF_RUNNING flags are set.