System startup delayed waiting for network if any "auto" interfaces specified in /etc/network/interfaces

[Wowbagger]

I want to have some especial configuration done on eth0 when it is brought up (setting MTU, configuring what speed to run, etc.), so I have added those commands to the "eth0" stanza in /etc/network/interfaces. However, upon upgrading to 13.04, this now causes the system to pause during boot "waiting for network configuration" (NOTE: The network is physically connected and ready to operate). Disabling the "eth0" stanza will allow boot to continue normally.

In other words, this hangs the boot for over a minute:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
up ethtool -K eth0 gso on
up ethtool -s eth0 advertise 0x3f
up ethtool -s eth0 wol a
mtu 6000

Removing that from /etc/network/interfaces allows the boot to continue.

This is a new behavior in 13.04 - 12.10 worked just fine.

Steps to reproduce:
Insure the system has a working wired network connection that will be available at boot.
Add the following to /etc/network/interfaces
 auto eth0
 iface eth0 inet dhcp

reboot.

Expected results:
eth0 brought up during boot with no significant delay
Actual results:
Boot delayed over 60 seconds.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
Package: network-manager 0.9.8.0-0ubuntu6
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-rc5 x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.9.2-0ubuntu8.3
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Aug 18 19:35:10 2013
IpRoute:
 default via 10.0.0.1 dev eth0
 10.0.0.0/8 dev eth0 proto kernel scope link src 10.16.0.66
 224.0.0.0/24 dev eth0 scope link
 239.0.0.0/8 dev eth0 scope link
MarkForUpload: True
NetworkManager.state:
 [main]
 NetworkingEnabled=true
 WirelessEnabled=true
 WWANEnabled=true
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
RfKill: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'rfkill'
SourcePackage: network-manager
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
nmcli-con:
 Error: command ['nmcli', '-f', 'all', 'con'] failed with exit code 9:
 ** (process:5672): WARNING **: Could not initialize NMClient /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager: The name org.freedesktop.NetworkManager was not provided by any .service files
 Error: nmcli (0.9.8.0) and NetworkManager (unknown) versions don't match. Force execution using --nocheck, but the results are unpredictable.
nmcli-dev: Error: command ['nmcli', '-f', 'all', 'dev'] failed with exit code 8: Error: NetworkManager is not running.
nmcli-nm:
 RUNNING VERSION STATE NET-ENABLED WIFI-HARDWARE WIFI WWAN-HARDWARE WWAN
 not running unknown unknown unknown unknown unknown unknown unknown

[Bryan Quigley (bryanquigley)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to look at all reported bugs in a timely manner. There have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time you reported the bug and your problem may have been fixed with some of the updates.

I'm going to close this bug report as their is nothing else we can do with this old report in a now unsupported version of Ubuntu. If you still have this issue on Ubuntu 14.04 or higher, please do reopen or report a new bug.