In searching the net, it has become obvious that Ubuntu 11.10 is severely bug ridden, that the status of bugs that prevent the system fully starting is trivialised, and there doesn't look to be a fix anytime soon.
My system is 11.10 server, it has one external network interface, eth0 using on board hardware. There has never been any doubt that the network interface is actually starting and working fine. This cannot be an unusual configuration. That said, I have looked at why failsafe.conf is delaying things. It looks like it provides a safety net for other failures: rc-sysinit.conf contains start on (filesystem and static-network-up) or failsafe-boot So, perhaps it is filesystem or static-network-up that are the problem? network-interface.conf is the only job that contains emits static- network-up, but it doesn't seem to actually emit it. Two things I discover, it appears that the pre start script exits ungracefully, and it doesn't seem to emit net-device-up (needed by nmbd for instance) or static-network-up (seemingly needed to allow the boot to complete). If some of this seems uncertain, it is because upstart is totally new to me, and the system is short on documentation, and it is not my objective to be a Ubuntu sysprog. But, this might help others to develop a fix to allow their system to boot fully. Owen -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/885909 Title: Boot process hangs in Ubuntu 11.10 server after upgrade To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/885909/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs