Comment 12 for bug 351378

Here's the summary how how to work around this bug:

First, if you're using Dnsmasq on the server-side you might run into Bug #327703. The Dnsmasq author has a patched version available.

1. On Hardy, download and install the attached dhcp3-client dummy package:
 % sudo dpkg -i dhcp3-client-dummy_3.0.6.dfsg-1ubuntu9_all.deb
and then put it on hold:
 % sudo aptitude hold dhcp3-client
On Intrepid, remove the dhcp3-client package and permit ubuntu-minimal to also get removed (or build your own dummy package using the equivs package).

2. Install udhcpc:
 % sudo aptitude install udhcpc

3. Add your virtual interface to /etc/network/interfaces, while also adding unique hostname and client arguments for both. The client identifiers can match the corresponding host names or be any other reasonable string, as long as they are not used by any other DHCP clients on your network.

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
  hostname primary-host
  client primary-client-id

auto eth0:1
iface eth0:1 inet dhcp
  hostname virtual-host
  client virtual-client-id

4. Restart the network subsystem:
 % sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart