... Not really what you asked for... that is no test involved but would setting the ONBOOT parameter on one or the other to `NO' help? ...
Thanks, but you're right, that's not quite what I had in mind. If I'm in the situation where the interface I need has ONBOOT unset, then when I boot, many subsequent network services, e.g. ntpdate, NFS mounts, etc. fail and need to be started by hand, which is what I'd like to avoid.
Joe