Bug#609073: net-tools is unable to configure a virtual interface - SIOCSIFFLAGS: Cannot assign requested address

[Huns]

Package: net-tools
Version: 1.60-22
Severity: important


Relevant section from /etc/network/interfaces:

iface eth0:4 inet static
        address 1.2.3.4
        netmask 255.255.255.0

$ ifconfig eth0:4 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Cannot assign requested address

$ ifconfig eth0:4 1.2.3.4 netmask 255.255.255.0

$ ping 1.2.3.4
PING 1.2.3.4 (1.2.3.4) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 1.2.3.4: icmp_req=1 ttl=64 time=0.099 ms
64 bytes from 1.2.3.4: icmp_req=2 ttl=64 time=0.119 ms
64 bytes from 1.2.3.4: icmp_req=3 ttl=64 time=0.087 ms

So, we can see that ifconfig is capable of enabling this interface... but
not if we expect it to do so from what we have in /etc/network/interfaces! I
have some other Debian machines where I can type ifconfig eth0:x up and it
will just work without giving me any hassle. Very strange!

This is a bug that keeps getting reported again and again over the years and
it keeps not getting fixed. Either the threads go on for a long time and
then people stop posting, or an administrator closes them because the
originator didn't respond to a request for comments. I cannot imagine why
ifconfig should be throwing an error on something in
/etc/network/interfaces, when I can give it the EXACT SAME ARGUMENTS on the
command line and have it work fine.

I can use ifup/ifdown to turn on the interface and it does work, but if I
ifdown it and do /etc/init.d/networking restart, the interface does NOT come
back - presumably because of the broken state of ifconfig. This means any
time the box is rebooted, interfaces will not be turned back on. If I could
rely on the interfaces to be configured properly I wouldn't have even
bothered filing this bug, but I really need to know that my machine will
come back in a sane state without me having to manually tell it to do
something that it should already be able to do by itself.

I have tried net-tools 1.60-22 and -23, but that didn't fix the problem. I
saw in some other bug reports that it was a problem with some wireless tools
package, but I don't have that installed. It seems to be reported in both
Debian and Ubuntu. At this point I've spent a good six or seven hours trying
to figure out this problem and I'm stumped, so I hope someone can figure out
how to fix this!



-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-2-686 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages net-tools depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.11.2-7   Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib

net-tools recommends no packages.

net-tools suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information