Comment # 5 on bug 1161438 from Daniel Molkentin

I tried both, and it doesn't seem to be a dracut issue per say:


(In reply to Ignaz Forster from comment #2)
> I think I found the trigger: Our KIWI images have `net.ifnames=0` set, and
> those are the installations that work. When adding that option to the
> command line options of regular installations, then those also get IP
> addresses (tested with VirtualBox). This didn't work on the physical Dell
> machine however, the interface is always called "em1" there.

Yay, Dell. They use biosdevname to name the interfaces, systemd does not play a
role here (and biosnamedev is hence unmoved by the parameters). This approach
is called "Consistent Network Device Naming". The gory details are layed out
here:
https://linux.dell.com/files/whitepapers/consistent_network_device_naming_in_linux.pdf

> This leads to the conclusion that dracut doesn't seem to be able to handle
> any non-ethX names / Predictable Network Interface Names. However, both images have net.ifnames=0 set by default, so I think our real problem are Predictable Network Interface names, because the biosdevname dracut module is probably not part of the default dracut image (see below for how to verify)

It works fine for me, however, there were two caviats:

> The (working) KIWI
> images I've been using are available from
> http://download.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/appliances/ (for KVM you want to get
> openSUSE-MicroOS.x86_64.qcow2).

This works just fine, but comes with af_packet module, as well as the network
and network-legacy dracut modules in the initrd.

(In reply to Ignaz Forster from comment #4)
> The Tumbleweed images (where it doesn't work) are the regular ones from
> https://software.opensuse.org/distributions/tumbleweed.

This image seems to lack both of the above, af_packet (Address Family 17) is
needed for user networking, which is qemu's default (I don't usually use
VirtualBox). And without the network modules, dracut will not care about
network parameters at all.

How to try to get it work:

modprobe af_packet
(for dell machine: ensure biosdevname package it installed, dracut will include
the 97biosdevname package automatically on the next run)
dracut -a network -a network-legacy -f
lsinitrd # check here if network, network-legacy (and biosdevname) modules as
well as af_packet.ko are part of the initramfs.
reboot # and check if it sets up the network.

(more details about what the network modules manage to setup can be collected
by booting with rd.debug=1 and checking the journal.)

Can you verify my analysis and whether the absence of the modules (in one case)
and biosdevname (in both cases for dell machines) from the initrd actually is
the problem?