The Question

How can ubuntu be configured so that you don't got the "waiting for network configuration..." message at boot if you got more than one adapter?

Facts

• I've got an untouched Ubuntu here in Virtual Box and In VM-Ware Workstation.




• My /etc/network/interfaces file is untouched and I've activated a Nat adapter to use the host systems real network card.



• Additionally I've activated a host only adapter to be able to use a separate IP for connections between the VM and the host system.

Deduction

I figured out that the interfaces file needs only one gateway entry and this is given trough

auto eth0

iface eth0 inet dhcp.

So this is the entry for the first network adapter that provides gateway information and so the second configuration has no need for a line called

gateway 192.168.1.1.

For me that means the second entry has to look like this:

address 192.168.217.131

depending on what the router tells you as network address for the interface configured trough dcp and the second line here is the netmask. In common cases this is

netmask 255.255.255.

So the entire `/etc/network/interfaces'-file looks like this:

#This file describe the network interfaces available on your system

#and how to activate them. For more information see interfaces(5).



#The loopack network interface 



auto lo

iface lo inet loopback



#The primary network interface 



# ethernet 0

auto eth0 

iface eth0 inet dhcp



auto eth1

iface eth1 inet static



address 192.168.217.131

netmask 255.255.255



#No need for gateway here because this is already provided by the dhcp entry.

In this example I've taken the IP address provided by Ubuntu's ^server (Basic Ubuntu Server) package what was 192.168.217.130 and increased it by one.

Now I restart Ubuntu and got the message Waiting for network Configuration... where Ubuntu try to wait for network connection about 2 minutes.

I've had the same on Virtual Box.