Question about NIC link state initialization

[Steve Polyack]

On 6/30/2011 1:10 AM, perryh at pluto.rain.com wrote:
> Steve Polyack<korvus at comcast.net>  wrote:
>
>> ... An occaisional fat-finger in /etc/fstab may cause one to
>> end up in single-user mode ... some of these systems have a LOM
>> (lights-out management) controller which shares the system's
>> on-board NICs ... when the system drops out of init(8) and into
>> single-user mode, the links on the interfaces never come up,
>> and therefore the LOM becomes inaccessible.
>>
>> ... all one has to do is run ifconfig to cause the NIC's links to
>> come up ... why do we have to run ifconfig(8) to bring the links
>> up on the attached interfaces?
> When trying to troubleshoot a problem that was known or suspected to
> involve the network or its hardware, one might not _want_ the NICs
> alive.
>
>> Short of patching init(8) (or perhaps the NIC drivers?), I don't
>> see another way for me to ensure the links come up even when the
>> system drops into single-user mode on boot.
> Something in /root/.profile, perhaps?  That should get run when the
> single-user shell starts up, if it's started as a "login" shell.
>
This won't work.  When the system kicks you into single-user mode, you 
are prompted to enter the name of a shell or press enter for /bin/sh.  
If no one is there to press enter, or enter the path to an alternate 
shell, then a shell never starts.