I use for my notebook at work net.eth0 with dhcp and at home adsl via adsl-start/-stop. My sendmail has "use net" in it, net.eth0 uses dhcp, which failed - of course - at home. I established at home an adsl-connection using adsl-start. After that I did an /etc/init.d/sendmail restart (changed my sendmail configuration). That's produce the following: n22 /etc/mail # /etc/init.d/sendmail restart * Stopping sendmail ... [ ok ] * Starting eth0 * Loading networking modules for eth0 * modules: iwconfig essidnet iptunnel ifconfig tuntap adsl dhcpcd apipa * iwconfig provides wireless * ifconfig provides interface * dhcpcd provides dhcp * Wireless extensions not found for eth0 * Bringing up eth0 * dhcp * Running dhcpcd ... [ !! ] * Starting sendmail ... [ ok ] But in my /var/log/messages I could read, that the adsl connection was closed (imediately after that the connection was re-estalished) Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Expected Results: net.eth0 shouldn't close my adsl-connection. n22 /etc/mail # emerge info Portage 2.0.51.22-r3 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.3.6, glibc-2.3.5-r2, 2.6.13-gentoo-r5 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.13-gentoo-r5 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1700MHz Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13 ccache version 2.3 [enabled] dev-lang/python: 2.4.2 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.12 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r6 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.15.92.0.2-r10 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.20 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium3 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/env /usr/kde/3.4/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium3 -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://pandemonium.tiscali.de/pub/gentoo/ ftp://ftp.belnet.be/mirror/rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo/ ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/Linux/gentoo http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/gentoo/" LINGUAS="de en" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.de.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 X acpi alsa apache2 apm arts avi berkdb bitmap-fonts browserplugin cdr crypt cups curl dri dvd eds emboss encode fam font-server foomaticdb fortran gd gdbm gif gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 imagemagick imlib innodb ipv6 jai java javascript jimi joystick jpeg junit kde libg++ libwww live mad mbox mikmod mmx mmxext motif mp3 mpeg mysql nagios-dns nagios-ntp nagios-ping ncurses nls nsplugin ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pcmcia pdflib perl png python qt quicktime readline real rtc samba sdl slp snmp spell sse sse2 ssl tcltk tcpd tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev userlocales vorbis wifi win32codecs xanim xine xml2 xmms xv zlib linguas_de linguas_en userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
Put this in your /etc/conf.d/net config_eth0=( "adsl" ) As explained here http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=4&chap=3#doc_chap4
