[solved]Network fails to start sometimes

Question

Hello!
I'm having a problem with my network. Sometimes it fails to start. Usually, a reboot solves this. Here is the error log:
[root@claudia log]# cat errors.log
Aug 6 03:16:28 claudia dhcpcd[3194]: dhcpStart: interface eth0 is not Ethernet or 802.2 Token Ring
rc.conf:
# NETWORKING
HOSTNAME="claudia"
# Interfaces to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each interface then list in INTERFACES
# - prefix an entry in INTERFACES with a ! to disable it
# - no hyphens in your interface names - Bash doesn't like it
# Note: to use DHCP, set your interface to be "dhcp" (eth0="dhcp")
lo="lo 127.0.0.1"
eth0="dhcp"
INTERFACES=(lo eth0)
# Routes to start at boot-up (in this order)
# Declare each route then list in ROUTES
# - prefix an entry in ROUTES with a ! to disable it
gateway="default gw 192.168.1.1"
ROUTES=(!gateway)
hosts:
[root@claudia log]# cat /etc/hosts
# /etc/hosts: static lookup table for host names
#<ip> <hostname> <hostname>
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost claudia
# End of file
What should I do to solve this?
Thanks and regards,
Gustavo

Answer 1

I'd say it's because since the ethernet over firewire module is loaded too,   it's counted as a network device too - and which one gets to be eth0 depends if the NIC or ethernet over firewire module is loaded first. There are many solutions to this:
1) If you don't need ethernet over firewire, keep it from being loaded by putting the module name (eth1394 I think) in MOD_BLACKLIST in /etc/rc.conf, like this:
MOD_BLACKLIST=(eth1394)
2) You can make both eth0 and eth1 (and perhaps other NICs too) start up together (I do this with my 2 NICs). To do that, make the rc.conf network section something like this:
lo="lo 127.0.0.1"
eth0="dhcp"
eth1="dhcp"
INTERFACES=(lo eth0 eth1)
Then you should put a @ in front of "network" ( @network ) in the DAEMONS array unless you like waiting for a NIC that won't start