Ignore missing interfaces #152

magic_rb commented 2026年01月28日 13:14:12 +01:00

I'm putting ifstate on my laptop since i want to have multiple network namespaces, which as we both know are poorly supported outside of ifstate :). However the issue is that my laptop doesn't have a physical rj45 ethernet, therefore i carry around a dongle which i plug in when i need a rj45. Issues arise when i try to run ifstate with a interface that may not exists:

interfaces."eth1" = {
 identify.perm_address = "xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx";
 link = {
 kind = "physical";
 state = "up";
 };
 hooks = [
 {
 name = "dhcpcd";
 args.IFACE = "eth1";
 }
 ];
};

(i have 2 dongles, eth0 and eth1 as i call them, currently my laptop is docked, so eth0 is connected, eth1 is the portable one)

this then leads to ifstate erroring out:

Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486]
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] configure sysctl settings...
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] ipv6/optimistic_dad ok
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486]
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] configure interfaces...
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] lo
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] link ok
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: addresses = 127.0.0.1/8
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: addresses = ::1/128
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] addresses = 127.0.0.1/8
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] addresses = ::1/128
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: eth0
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] eth0
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: link ok
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] link ok
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55575]: read_config: /etc/dhcpcd.conf: No such file or directory
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55575]: sending commands to dhcpcd process
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen dhcpcd[55575]: read_config: /etc/dhcpcd.conf: No such file or directory
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen dhcpcd[55575]: sending commands to dhcpcd process
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: hooks = dhcpcd
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] hooks = dhcpcd
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: eth1
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: eth1 unable to create physical link
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] eth1
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] eth1 unable to create physical link
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: eth1 link missing
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] eth1 link missing
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] eth1 link missing
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: eth1 link missing
Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: AttributeError: 'PhysicalLink' object has no attribute 'iface'

I see two issues here:

1. i would like to be able to tell ifstate to fully ignore missing interfaces, so that if i end up searching the logs for warnings or in some other way looking for warnings, i dont get false positives
2. ifstate exits with a unhandled exception

ifstatecli --version reports:

ifstatecli 2.2.3

I'm putting ifstate on my laptop since i want to have multiple network namespaces, which as we both know are poorly supported outside of ifstate :). However the issue is that my laptop doesn't have a physical rj45 ethernet, therefore i carry around a dongle which i plug in when i need a rj45. Issues arise when i try to run ifstate with a interface that may not exists: ``` interfaces."eth1" = { identify.perm_address = "xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx"; link = { kind = "physical"; state = "up"; }; hooks = [ { name = "dhcpcd"; args.IFACE = "eth1"; } ]; }; ``` (i have 2 dongles, `eth0` and `eth1` as i call them, currently my laptop is docked, so `eth0` is connected, `eth1` is the portable one) this then leads to ifstate erroring out: ``` Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] configure sysctl settings... Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] ipv6/optimistic_dad ok Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] configure interfaces... Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] lo Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] link ok Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: addresses = 127.0.0.1/8 Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: addresses = ::1/128 Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] addresses = 127.0.0.1/8 Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] addresses = ::1/128 Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: eth0 Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] eth0 Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: link ok Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] link ok Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55575]: read_config: /etc/dhcpcd.conf: No such file or directory Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55575]: sending commands to dhcpcd process Jan 28 13:00:55 omen dhcpcd[55575]: read_config: /etc/dhcpcd.conf: No such file or directory Jan 28 13:00:55 omen dhcpcd[55575]: sending commands to dhcpcd process Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: hooks = dhcpcd Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] hooks = dhcpcd Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: eth1 Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: eth1 unable to create physical link Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] eth1 Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] eth1 unable to create physical link Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: eth1 link missing Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] eth1 link missing Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstate-apply[55486]: ifstate-apply[55486] eth1 link missing Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: eth1 link missing Jan 28 13:00:55 omen ifstatecli[55486]: AttributeError: 'PhysicalLink' object has no attribute 'iface' ``` I see two issues here: 1. i would like to be able to tell ifstate to fully ignore missing interfaces, so that if i end up searching the logs for warnings or in some other way looking for warnings, i dont get false positives 2. ifstate exits with a unhandled exception `ifstatecli --version` reports: ``` ifstatecli 2.2.3 ```

liske commented 2026年01月28日 14:44:12 +01:00

1. You could consider to abuse the vrrp tagging to ignore those interfaces by default. If the ifaces are plugged in you could run ifstatecli vrrp instance $NAME master to configure the interface (maybe event trigger this somehow from udev)

2. yes this is a bug, I will look into it (later)

Thanks!

1. You could consider to abuse the [vrrp](https://ifstate.net/2.2/docs/vrrp/) tagging to ignore those interfaces by default. If the ifaces are plugged in you could run `ifstatecli vrrp instance $NAME master` to configure the interface (maybe event trigger this somehow from udev) 2. yes this is a bug, I will look into it (later) Thanks!

liske commented 2026年02月05日 00:01:35 +01:00

I wonder why your hook has a IFACE argument, couldn't you use the already provides IFS_IFNAME variable (see also the docs)?

I wonder why your hook has a `IFACE` argument, couldn't you use the already provides `IFS_IFNAME` variable (see also the [docs](https://ifstate.net/2.2/docs/hooks/#invocation))?