I've got a laptop with a PCMCIA ethernet card, which may or may not be plugged in. net.eth0 is started as a "default" service and, when the card is unplugged, it obviously fails. However, when I try to start apache-2.0.54-r31 (but I assume you'll have the same problem with any other service with the "need net" dependency) the script will try to bring net.eth0 up, it will fail, and consequently refuse to start apache2. Expected behaviour: I have net.lo already running, and that should be sufficient. There's no need for net.eth0. Workaround: use "use net" instead of "need net" - I'm not 100% sure of the consequences, though.
# emerge info Portage 2.0.51.22-r3 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.3.6, glibc-2.3.5-r2, 2.6.14-gentoo-r2 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.14-gentoo-r2 i686 AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2000+ Gentoo Base System version 1.6.13 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: 2.16.1 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.20 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i586-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-Os -march=pentium2 -mmmx -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -falign-functions=4" CHOST="i586-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/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-Os -march=pentium2 -mmmx -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe -falign-functions=4" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig ccache digest distcc distlocks fixpackages sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://pandemonium.tiscali.de/pub/gentoo/ ftp://pandemonium.tiscali.de/pub/gentoo/ http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/gentoo/ ftp://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/gentoo/ ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/gentoo/" LANG="it_IT@euro" LINGUAS="it" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 X adns alsa apache2 apm audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 crypt cups curl dga dvb eds emboss encode erandom ethereal exif expat fbcon ffmpeg firefox flac foomaticdb fortran gdbm ggi gif ginac glut gmp gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 idn imlib ipv6 java jpeg kerberos lcms ldap libcaca libg++ libwww lzo mad matroska mhash mikmod mmx mng motif mozilla mp3 mpeg mysql ncurses network nls no_wxgtk1 nptl offensive ogg oggvorbis opengl pam pcre pdflib perl pic plotutils png python qhull quicktime readline real recode rtc samba sdl skey slang snmp spell ssl svg tcpd tga theora threads tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev vorbis win32codecs xine xml2 xv xvid xvmc zlib linguas_it userland_GNU kernel_linux elibc_glibc" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS
Well, sorry but this is not a bug, but intended behaviour... If you need something different, then set up RC_NET_STRICT_CHECKING in /etc/conf.d/rc accordingly.