After some cable-in, cable-out events, ifplugd seems to get "stuck" and does not deactivate the interface anymore. Trying to manually remove eth0 bellini ~ # /etc/init.d/net.eth0 stop * Stopping eth0 * Bringing down eth0 * Stopping ifplugd on eth0 ... [ !! ] -> in /var/log/messages Mar 26 11:22:40 bellini ifplugd(eth0)[5819]: Killing child. (and nothing else interesting) leads to a zombie process (ps ax output): 5819 ? Ss 0:02 /usr/sbin/ifplugd --iface=eth0 29467 ? Z 0:00 [ifplugd.action] <defunct> The only way I found to resolve this was a reboot. The network adapter is a tg3 (built-in, not module). The effect has been reproduced 2-3 times at irregular intervals (typically after a week or so), with kernels 2.6.24.2 and 2.6.24-gentoo-r3. I'll add more information here when this re-occurs and I find anything interesting.
Additional note - it seems the bug occurs when * the notebook is connected to ethernet, * suspended to ram * and wakes up without cable...
It seems like this went away with a kernel update. Not sure which one, but the problem has not occurred for months. I'm marking this resolved since there is no need to act on this bug report anymore.