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>> 29 stinking hours

Fri, Feb 9th 8:17am 2007: Linux

29 stinking hours.

That's how long I wasted trying to track down a stupid networking problem that occurs sometimes when converting Debian / Ubuntu / etc servers to Xen virtual machines.

2.9 seconds.

That's how long it took to fix the actual problem once I figured out what it was. And to hopefully save other people the same grief in future, if you have an existing machine and you convert it to a Xen image by duping the disk into a separate partition or loopback device or whatever, and you see messages like "Eth0: Device not found" when you try to start networking, have a look for a file called "/etc/iftab". Open it. Delete the entry for eth0. Restart networking. Watch in amazement as it Just Works. Bang your head on the desk for a while: I find about 7 or 8 times is usually enough to make me forget the anguish of losing 29 hours of my life.