[systemd-devel] Systemd-networkd -- Cannot acquire DHCP lease on bridge interface

[Tom Gundersen]

On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 4:52 AM, Leonid Isaev <lisaev at umail.iu.edu> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 04:56:55PM -0700, James Lott wrote:
>> Actually, the reason I am using dhcpcd fro mthe command line is as a debugging
>> measure, because I originally setup a .network file for this interface to
>> attempt to allow systemd-networkd to handle acquiring the DHCP lease.
>
> You could run networkd manually as
> # SYSTEMD_LOG_LEVEL=debug /usr/lib/systemd/systemd-networkd
>
> but this will also show endless DISCOVER attempts. In my case, I controlled the
> DHCP server, and according to its logs the lease is actually assigned but the
> client never receives it. So, I suspect a bug either in kernel or systemd
> because packets get lost in the bridge (or bond in my case). I suspect the
> former because restarting networkd didn't help (i.e. the DHCP lease never got
> received).
>
>> Yuck. I'm really not a fan of netctl, and would probably sooner hack together
>> some oneshot service files that manually setup the interfaces and acquire
>> leases. So it sounds like systemd-networkd is not quite ready for prime time
>> when it comes to being a complete interface management solution. I guess
>> that's what I get for living life on the edge ;)
>
> Netctl is better in this situation because it allows ordering of different
> profiles w.r.t. each other because they are just systemd services (in networkd
> language this would be ordering of different .net* units if such existed). So
> you can first set up vlans, then bridge and do the DHCP stuff.
>
> There is an additional problem with networkd: you never know how to order
> against it. Sure there are network* targets (and ideally things _should_ work)
> but they are useless in this context because they can be reached before
> (virtual) devices are actually initialized. OTOH, when a netctl script
> successfully returns, you know that things are properly set up.
>
> Hopefully this thread attracts relevant attention because I don't know how to
> debug this...

Hi Leonid and James,

Thanks for debugging this so far, I'll take a look next week.

Cheers,

Tom