In that case, you are probably going to have to boot from a
rescue CD. In single user mode, the network in not supposed to
be initialized.
The problem is, it seems, that "network hardware init" is done a lot
earlier in the boot sequence than the actual network startup, and
includes some ifconfig or iwconfig calls, which is what breaks
everything in my case. In fact, this step is done even for networks that
have ONBOOT=no. Qlearly, a related question is why things have been done
this way. Shouldn't the network config be left alone until it is time to
start the network? And shouldn't disabled configs (as in ONBOOT=no) be
skipped completely?
It depends on how the modules are loaded. If they are loaded because
of an alias in /etc/modprobe.conf, then the hardware should not get
initialed. If the modules is loaded by modprobe.conf, HAL, or by
hotplug, that is another story. Just loading the module should not
result in calls to ifconfig or iwconfig.
Right...
Closer inspection reveals that what /etc/rc.sysinit tries to "modprobe"
the bit matching * in "ls /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-*", or
was it the "Device" specified inside the file? (I forget so fast...) I
am unable to find any reference to iwconfig or anything, but the
behaviour suggests that *something* besides just loading the module is
done, and the error message I get before everything locks up actually
mentions iwconfig. Also, I get a very similar hang if I execute a
certain iwconfig command - "iwconfig <device> essid" any, to be precise.
This is really weird...
Anyhow, it turns out that the whole init step may be disabled by listing
the module name and its alias (I think both were I needed) in
/etc/hotplug/blacklist. Doing that does not appear to affect the actual
network startup in any way, so I'm still wondering what the point of the
h/w init routine is.
I'm of course implying here that the network works now, and it does, but
only if I remove the "essid" line (see above) from
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-wireless.
In any case, using init=/bin/bash from Grub should skip all that.
It drops you to a command prompt without running scripts. (Bash is
run instead of init.)
I never thought of that... I did, however, find eventually that init
accepts an argument "-b", which has more or less the same effect, and
that eventually saved the day - along with an USB-to-PS/2 adapter, since
I have a USB keyboard, and even that wouldn't be initialised when
passing the above mentioned option...
Thanks anyway.
- Toralf
