setting static IP with network-admin makes GNOME startup slow

[Sero]

Binary package hint: gnome-system-tools

The last days GNOME startup (from login screen to desktop) was painfully slow on my 2 weeks old Ubuntu Edgy install. "Slow" means that I see the Gnome splash screen ~ 30 sec. when it usaly took only 3 sec. to give me a working desktop.

I found out that this behaviour comes from the configuration of a static IP address for my wired network card with network-admin. The logs didn't give any information about what's going on here.

Steps to reproduce:

1. configure eth0 (wired network) for dhcp with network-admin, reboot, everything is OK.

2. configure eth0 (wired network) with static IP with network-admin, reboot, GNOME startup is very slow.

/etc/network/interfaces looks like this

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.33
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.1.1

auto eth0

3. delete everything about eth0 in /etc/network/interfaces, reboot, Gnome startup is OK again

/etc/network/interfaces looks like this

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

That network configuration doesn't look wrong. Is the "lo" interface working correctly when you have the slow login?

[Sero (sero4linux)]

Seems like my problems comes from the edgy-proposed updates. I unchecked the edgy-proposed repositry and reverted the affected packages back to the edgy ones. Now it works fine again. Seems like it was a problem with the gnome-panel or gnome-applet packages from edgy-proposed.

The network config was in no way wrong - e.g. I could also configure eth0 to DHCP with network-admin and the network itself was working fine (in both static and DHCP). But whenever there was more then the "lo" interface in the config file gnome suffered from slow startup.

Now my question is: is this the right place to report bugs from edgy-backports or not?

Regards,
Sero

[Sero (sero4linux)]

Sry "edgy-backports" should be "edgy-proposed". I do NOT use backports!

[Iacopo Masi (iacopo-masi)]

I have that problem too, but quite different. I want to report a new bug, with this comment:
[network-admin] bad format of /etc/hosts make slow Gnome Startup if no lan connection is on, but then I found this Bug.
My problem was that when the Pc was not connect to the LAN gnome startup and all gnome apps where huge slowly. I just find that It was a network problem, because if I was connected not happened.
I found the way to solve the isse:
I think network-admin (the tool that I use to set my net) makes a bad format con /etc/hosts.
I comment all the line about IPv6 and add my hostname in sequence of localhost, then I restart gnome without LAN support and it goes fast. See file attachmente for more details.

This bug is reported from me and anther Italian user. So I'm not alone. Morever read this entry in the forum

http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=317242

I tool from there the solution

Sincerly,
lizardking

[Gareth Fitzworthington (mapping-gp-deactivatedaccount)]

The slow login/desktop bug appears to have been around for a while. The bug is reported in edgy & feisty and they are mostly unconfirmed and mostly of undecided importance. Although I'm very happy with feisty, I am finding this bug a bit bothersome so I thought I'd do some research through the bug archives.

I think this bug has been reported numerous times. The bug list that follows, I think are reports of effectively the same bug.

Bug #78263 - claims workaround (feisty)
Bug #78493 (edgy)
Bug #79466 (edgy)
Bug #80827 - claims workaround (edgy)
Bug #92997 - claims workaround (feisty)
Bug #94048 (feisty)
Bug #110616 (feisty?)
Bug #110775 (feisty)
Bug #110187 - reports slow desktop as a side effect of other network config issues. (feisty)
---------------
Bug #95264 - Maybe related (not clear) (feisty)
Bug #93447 - Maybe related (not clear) (edgy)
---------------
It seems most discussions are blaming this bug on one or more of:
Network-manager
avahi
hosts file
resolve file
static IP addresses
no network connection.

I can't vouch for the claimed workarounds - but I intend on investigating them further.

The person who solves this one will likely 'kill a number of bugs with one stone'.

I hope I'm not being too forward by presenting such a list but I am rather keen to see this bug solved. I hope this list helps to unify further discussion & prompts some further thought on the matter.

(note: I have posted it to all above bug reports so that all are in the loop)

[Gareth Fitzworthington (mapping-gp-deactivatedaccount)]

Add Bug #79661 to above list.

[Caroline Ford (secretlondon)]

Do you still have this problem in Hardy?

[Jery Wang (jery-wang2002)]

Yes it does.
Hardy Alpha 5 updated to the latest update as at March 3, 2008.

I also changed something in /etc/hosts

but there are other changes to to the gnome panel (I add workrave to the panel).

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Closing due to inactivity. Please reopen if reproducible in 8.10 alpha.

[marco.pallotta (marco-pallotta)]

I have the same issue in Hardy Heron LTS (stable release) but the problem is not only related to gnome startup but to the whole system (in fact if switch to a tty and I launc "sudo -i" the system takes too time to replay). A possible workaround to this problem is to create via nm-applet a dhcp profile to select when network cable is unplugged.
I think this issue (that for a typical user is a great usability issue) should be fixed even if with a simple script that polls for network cable and if this last is not plugged in it should launch an "ifconfig down" (or "ifconfig up" is the cable is plugged in).
I propose this fix, and not a nm-applet patch, as I know that this applet has been rewritten for Intrepid and cannot be backported in Hardy.

[Siegfried Gevatter (rainct)]

I can confirm that me and other people have experienced the problem about a wrong /etc/hosts file making GNOME's startup painfully slow, too.

[marco.pallotta (marco-pallotta)]

I made a test: if configured my with static ip address (via nm-applet) and then I rebooted it but before I unplugged my utp cable. At boot time when gdm appears I went to the shell and disabled the eth interface (with ifconfig eth0 down). At this point, after logging in into the system, gnome startup correctly.
After logging in I checked nm-applet config and I saw that the wired connection that I setup before still remained but wasn't checked (probably nm detects that interface is down).

[marco.pallotta (marco-pallotta)]

It seems that in Intrepid this issue doesn't happen.

[Mantas Kriaučiūnas (mantas)]

On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 08:25:06PM -0000, marco.pallotta wrote:
> It seems that in Intrepid this issue doesn't happen.

Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) doesn't have network-admin tool - static IP
configuration is handled in non-user-friendly way with network-manager tool

> --
> setting static IP with network-admin makes GNOME startup slow

--
Labanaktis/Good luck,
Mantas Kriaučiūnas Jabber ID: <email address hidden> GPG ID: 43535BD5
Public organization "Open Source for Lithuania" - www.akl.lt

[Gaetan Nadon (memsize)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better.

There is a complex web of 14 bug reports for this issue. I have been reading all of them (thanks to Gareth for the summary) and I have come to the conclusion that the problem is fixed in Intrepid, but still present in prior releases. The proposed workaround with localhost was reported to work, however there are claims that it has undesired side-effect and must be used with caution.

I will mark this bug report as a duplicate of bug 78263 which also refers to bug 256480. If you need a fix for the bug in previous versions of Ubuntu, please follow the instructions for "How to request new packages" at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBackports#request-new-packages

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