Bug 52580

Summary:	device alias doesn't work in BindTo/After
Product:	systemd	Reporter:	rodrigo <rodrigorivascosta>
Component:	general	Assignee:	systemd-bugs
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED	QA Contact:	systemd-bugs
Severity:	normal
Priority:	medium	CC:	d, Felix.Braun, freedesktop, rodrigorivascosta, tuxce.net, uhrmar, vmlinuz386
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	x86 (IA32)
OS:	Linux (All)
Whiteboard:
i915 platform:		i915 features:

Description rodrigo 2012-07-27 09:59:29 UTC

Hi!

I've been trying to write a unit template to configure the network (systemd version: 187):

File: net-static@.service

[Unit]
Description=Static interface
Wants=network.target
Before=network.target
#BindTo=sys-subsystem-net-devices-%i.device
#After=sys-subsystem-net-devices-%i.device

[Service]
...


Now, if I uncomment any of the lines that make a reference to the device alias, then the alias itself disappears!

When I say that the alias disappears, I mean that it is no longer an alias of the real device, instead it looks like systemd believes it is a proper unit in its own, and I can see it in the output of `systemctl --all`: loaded inactive dead, without meaningful description.

If the BindTo is uncommented, that means that this unit cannot start: it tries to start the sys-subsystem-net-devices-eth0.device unit, and it times out.

If only the After is uncommented, then this unit is started anyway.

However, if I write the BindTo/After using the full name of the device (BindTo=sys-devices-pci0000:00-0000:00:03.0-net-eth0.device) then it works as expected). But that's not so useful, because I'm writing a template so I really need to use the alias.

Is my unit expected to work or am I totally misunderstanding aliases?

Regards
-- 
Rodrigo

Comment 1 Dave Reisner 2012-09-09 17:26:36 UTC

Yeah, this is definitely a bug -- it breaks ordering for DHCP clients and wpa_supplicant. The only workaround I know of at the moment is to explicitly load the module in /etc/modules-load.d to give the interface a better chance of existing when your unit runs.

I reported this a while ago, as well:

http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2012-July/005847.html

It's still valid in 189.

Comment 2 Markus Uhr 2012-10-02 07:39:16 UTC

This bug also affects me. In my case, it's a USB-to-Ethernet adaptor that gets different USB addresses assigned by the kernel (usb7-7\x2d3-7\x2d3:1.0 or usb3-3\x2d3-3\x2d3:1.0). Since I can't use the device alias, as a work-around, I have to rewrite my service file upon every second reboot.

Fixing this bug would be greatly appreciated.

Markus

Comment 3 Eelco Dolstra 2012-10-15 14:56:56 UTC

I've posted a patch on the systemd-devel list that should fix this problem:

http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2012-October/006872.html

Comment 4 Dave Reisner 2012-10-21 13:09:47 UTC

Thanks Eelco, I pulled your patch for inclusion in the next release.

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