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On a raspbian GNU/Linux 8 system, I get these errors during bootup:

ifplugd(eth0)[214]: Executing '/etc/ifplugd/ifplugd.action eth0 up'.
ifplugd(eth0)[214]: client: /sbin/ifup: failed to open lockfile /run/network/.ifstate.lock: No such file or directory
ifplugd(eth0)[214]: client: run-parts: /etc/ifplugd/action.d//ifupdown exited with return code 1
ifplugd(eth0)[214]: Program execution failed, return value is 1.

Later on, ifplugd repeats the action and succeeds. I suspect the initial failure is due to /run not being mounted. My questions are:

  1. Is this normal behaviour or a bug/misconfiguration? ifplugd runs while systemd-fsck is still running, so it seems ifplugd is a bit early? Can I just ignore this problem?

  2. Mounting /run appears to be a special case not handled by /etc/fstab because it needs to be present very early. So which part controls the mounting of /run? Is this done by systemd? If so, which part of systemd?

Thomas
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Alexander Klauer
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1 Answers1

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/run is already mounted early enough.

Your diagnosis is faulty.

/run is mounted by the systemd program running as process #1. It is one of the so-called "API filesystems" that systemd mounts before it even begins to bring up services and targets. Indeed, systemd allows for /run to be mounted by the initrd stage of the bootstrap before process #1 executes the systemd program itself. Whatever the cause of your problem, it is not because of /run not being mounted.

Given that the problem is with a file that is in /run/network/, really your first thought rather should have been Does the /run/network/ directory yet exist at this point in the bootstrap? leading to the question What creates the /run/network/ directory? leading to the networking service that runs the /etc/init.d/networking script and whether it runs before or after the ifplugd service that runs the /etc/init.d/ifplugd script. For the answer to which, see the very logs that you are looking at. ☺

Yes, the ifplugd service is relying upon the networking service having been started first. No, their van Smoorenburg rc scripts do not in fact encode this ordering.

Further reading

JdeBP
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