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</style></head><body><div>The purpose of this service is to be used as a dependency by other services that need internet/network configured when starting up, like apache, dnsmasq, chrony. <br>Some of those can manage to reload later when the interface is configured, but some cannot. <br><br></div><div>It is slowing your boot time, because be default it waits for all interfaces to be configured and that could include network cards that don't have a connection at all. </div><div><br></div><div>You have 2 options: <br>1. disable the unit and hope to not have services that need network configured when starting (note that because of boot order and race conditions those could still boot fine most of the time)<br>2. override the service and explicitly give a flag which interface to monitor like so: <br>Create a dir /etc/systemd/system/systemd-networkd-wait-online.service.d <br>Create a file in there: /etc/systemd/system/systemd-networkd-wait-online.service.d/override.conf<br>With the content between the dashes below and update your interface name</div><div>--------</div><div><div>[Service]</div><div>ExecStart=</div><div>ExecStart=/lib/systemd/systemd-networkd-wait-online --interface enp6s0</div><div>--------</div><div><br></div><div>The first ExecStart is on purpose to reset the existing one other wise you just add what to be executed on start instead of override it. </div><div><br></div><div>I would try option 2 first since 1 can have unforeseen consequences. In my case I have my rescue-ssh.target that is ment to only start network, ssh and my vpn. However if I disable <span style="font-family: serif;">systemd-networkd-wait-online then the target doesn't configure the network interfaces at all which makes the system inaccessible. </span></div></div><div><br></div><div>Hope this helps.</div><div><br></div><div>On Sun, 2026-04-05 at 12:45 -0400, Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex; border-left:2px #729fcf solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">I found that the systemd-networkd-wait-online service is disabled on 6 of my machines, but enabled on another 2.</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">Examples where it is disabled:</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family:monospace"><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">foo </span><br>* systemd-networkd-wait-online.service - Wait for Network to be Configured<br> Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-networkd-wait-online.service; disabled; preset: enabled)<br> Active: inactive (dead)<br> Docs: man:systemd-networkd-wait-online.service(8)<br></span></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family:monospace">bar <br></span></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><span style="font-family:monospace">* systemd-networkd-wait-online.service - Wait for Network to be Configured<br> Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-networkd-wait-online.service; disabled; preset: enabled)<br> Active: inactive (dead)<br> Docs: man:systemd-networkd-wait-online.service(8)<br></span></div><div><br></div><div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">On one machine that it is enabled, it runs fine:</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">Machine 1: wd1<br>* systemd-networkd-wait-online.service - Wait for Network to be Configured<br> Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-networkd-wait-online.service; enabled; preset: enabled)<br> Drop-In: /run/systemd/system/systemd-networkd-wait-online.service.d<br> `-10-netplan.conf<br> Active: active (exited) since Sat 2026-04-04 11:47:36 EDT; 23h ago<br> Docs: man:systemd-networkd-wait-online.service(8)<br> Process: 1182 ExecStart=/lib/systemd/systemd-networkd-wait-online -i <b>eno8303:degraded</b> (code=exited, status=0/<b>SUCCESS</b>)<br> Process: 1740 ExecStart=/lib/systemd/systemd-networkd-wait-online --any -o routable -i eno8303 (code=exited, status=0/<b>SUCCESS</b>)<br> Main PID: 1740 (code=exited, status=0/<b>SUCCESS</b>)<br> CPU: 11ms<br><br>Apr 04 11:47:31 wd1 systemd[1]: Starting systemd-networkd-wait-online.service - Wait for Network to be Configured...<br>Apr 04 11:47:36 wd1 systemd[1]: Finished systemd-networkd-wait-online.service - Wait for Network to be Configured.</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">On the other it times out and reports a failure:</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">Machine 2: w2</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">x systemd-networkd-wait-online.service - Wait for Network to be Configured<br> Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-networkd-wait-online.service; enabled; preset: enabled)<br> Drop-In: /run/systemd/system/systemd-networkd-wait-online.service.d<br> `-10-netplan.conf<br> Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sat 2026-04-04 12:01:54 EDT; 23h ago<br> Docs: man:systemd-networkd-wait-online.service(8)<br> Process: 2447 ExecStart=/lib/systemd/systemd-networkd-wait-online -i <b>eno8303:degraded -i eno8403:degraded</b> (code=exited, status=1/<b>FAILURE</b>)<br> Main PID: 2447 (code=exited, status=1/<b>FAILURE</b>)<br> CPU: 17ms<br><br>Apr 04 11:59:54 w2 systemd[1]: Starting systemd-networkd-wait-online.service - Wait for Network to be Configured...<br>Apr 04 12:01:54 w2 systemd-networkd-wait-online[2447]: Timeout occurred while waiting for network connectivity.<br>Apr 04 12:01:54 w2 systemd[1]: systemd-networkd-wait-online.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE<br>Apr 04 12:01:54 w2 systemd[1]: systemd-networkd-wait-online.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.<br>Apr 04 12:01:54 w2 systemd[1]: Failed to start systemd-networkd-wait-online.service - Wait for Network to be Configured.</div></div><div><br></div><div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">The two machines are very similar in configuration, hardware and software.</div><br></div><div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">Why only those two machines have that service enabled?</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">My guess is that they had a fresh install of Ubuntu Server 24.04 LTS, and not upgraded from earlier releases.</div></div><div><br><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">Most of the others that have the unit disabled were upgraded from 14.04 (or earlier) through 22.04 and then 24.04.</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">A couple of them had a fresh install of Xubuntu 24.04 LTS, so maybe that is how they are pre-configured.</div><br></div><div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">I wouldn't be too concerned about it, except that it delays the booting of this machine by a few minutes.</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">I can't glean much from the unit file itself.</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">The highlighted parts contain ids of the network interfaces.</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">Only one is actually used, and it runs fine. </div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">No idea why it says "degraded" for both.</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default"><br></div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">Can anyone shed more light on this?</div><div style="font-size:small" class="gmail_default">Should I just disable that unit file?</div></div></div></div></div></div><div>_______________________________________________<br></div><div>kwlug-disc mailing list<br></div><div>To unsubscribe, send an email to <a href="mailto:kwlug-disc-leave@kwlug.org">kwlug-disc-leave@kwlug.org</a><br></div><div>with the subject "unsubscribe", or email<br></div><div><a href="mailto:kwlug-disc-owner@kwlug.org">kwlug-disc-owner@kwlug.org</a> to contact a human being.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><span></span></div></body></html>