Ubuntu

do-release-upgrade to gutsy disables eth0

Asked by ChrisBlack

I believe this is a bug in the feisty to gutsy upgrade process.
I followed https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GutsyUpgrades to upgrade a brand new feisty install to gutsy. I did an apt-get update/upgrade to make sure I was up to date first and then followed the directions in GutsyUpgrades using do-release-upgrade.
The upgrade seems to have gone ok (packages upgraded, system functioning, etc) except that it disabled my network interface (which was especially problematic since I was doing this upgrade over ssh). When restarting the NetworkManager/network my ssh connection froze:
Setting up linux-generic (2.6.22.14.20) ...
Setting up network-manager (0.6.5-0ubuntu15) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/dbus-1/system.d/NetworkManager.conf ...
Auto interfaces found: lo eth0 eth1 eth2 ath0 wlan0
iface to disable = eth0
iface to disable = eth1
iface to disable = eth2
iface to disable = ath0
iface to disable = wlan0
Disabling interface: eth0 ... done.
Disabling interface: eth1 ... done.
Disabling interface: eth2 ... done.
Disabling interface: ath0 ... done.
Disabling interface: wlan0 ... done.
 * Reloading system message bus config... [ OK ]
 * Restarting network connection manager NetworkManager
(no more response over ssh or ping after this point)

Note that it says it is disabling eth0 and did in fact do so. I was able to fix this by going to the local console and editing /etc/network/interfaces and restarting networking. Before my fix interfaces contained:
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
#iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto eth1
#iface eth1 inet dhcp

auto eth2
#iface eth2 inet dhcp

auto ath0
#iface ath0 inet dhcp

auto wlan0
#iface wlan0 inet dhcp

So that when networking was started it said it did not know how to handle any of the interfaces.

I hope the upgrade is ok even though it ended this way, I would like some input on that. I am also able to upload any logs that might help in fixing this issue.

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Revision history for this message
Scott Kitterman (kitterman) said : 		#1

I'm not sure remote upgrading desktops via SSH is supported.

Revision history for this message
Patrick J. LoPresti (lopresti) said : 		#2

Remote upgrading of desktops had better be supported if Ubuntu aspires to be anything more than a "toy". Here in the real world, a desktop's user and its administrator can be in different buildings, cities, states, or continents...

The problem described here is a serious bug. I believe the Gutsy updater only clobbers your network settings for interfaces configured "auto". So to work around this bug, you can edit /etc/network/interfaces to set a manual configuration prior to the upgrade. I think.

This is a poor workaround, however. It would be nice if the Ubuntu developers would fix the problem instead of just saying this quite realistic and common configuration is "not supported".

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