I've just had the problem that my brand new Debian Squeeze 6.0.2 setup would not boot, because it tried to bring up the network interface using DHCP - but couldn't.
It printed a few DHCPDISCOVER messages and then just sat there, waiting forever...
Normally, the lack of a DHCP server would output the same "DHCPDISCOVER" messages, but finally give up with the following message and continue booting:Listening on LPF/eth1/00:15:17:ef:xx:xx
Sending on LPF/eth1/00:15:17:ef:xx:xx
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 13
[SOLUTION]No DHCPOFFERS received.
I've had to connect the network interface to a DHCP enabled infrastructure.
However, I still think the machine should still be able to boot without being connected to a network at all.
I've found a bug report called "initramfs-tools: kernel does not boot without network connection that sounds quite similar, I'm not sure if it's the same thing.
Additionally, I'm suspecting a quirk caused by my setup: I've had an isc-dhcp-server automatically startup on that machine - although there's another DHCP server already running on the network.
I'm still investigating this issue, but posting this entry in order to keep track of my findings (and help my memory)
