Install Debian 12 "Network autoconfiguration failed"

[su01]

Hello everybody,

I’m really lost trying to install Debian 12 on my Fujitsu i7 Workstation.

That computer currently runs Debian 11 without a problem, network works fine, but during installation, it says „Network autoconfiguration failed“ in step „Configuring with DHCP“.

I don’t think it’s an hardware problem, the NIC (Intel Cooperation 82579V Gigabit Network Connection) is working perfectly fine on the currently installed Debian 11 system.

Is this a known problem? Do you have any idea what I can do about that?
I’m using the „debian-12.4.0-amd64-netinst.iso“ image. I remember having problems with non-free drivers in the past, but since Debian 12 there are no non-free-images, as far as I understand …?

Thank you so much for your help

AJ

[bbbhltz]

Is it possible that your device has more than one network adapter listed?

If you have the time, grab one of the Live ISOs and give that a test to see if you can still connect to the internet.

[su01]

Thanks bbbhltz for your reply.
No, there is only one adapter listed - should work IMHO.
But good idea, I'll try "debian-live-12.4.0-amd64-xfce.iso" to see if network's working on Debian 12.

[su01]

Update: I still don't get it!

I tried the XFCE and standard (with no desktop environment) live-ISOs and both are immediately connected to the network.
Still, when I run the setup (doesn’t matter if I use text or graphical mode), it doesn’t work, cannot connect to the internet.

Since it works perfectly fine in the live-environment, do I have to active special drivers or something in the setup? Please help …

Thank you so much.

AJ

[su01]

Nothing, no ideas?

Using the Live-Image, which works perfectly fine, I found out that it's using the e10001 nic driver - seems like the setup is not able to use that driver?
Is there any way to find out the reason for that?

Thanks so much

[lindi]

Is there any way to find out the reason for that?

Does manual network configuration work in debian-installer?

[Aki]

Hello @su01,

Using the Live-Image, which works perfectly fine, I found out that it's using the e10001 nic driver - seems like the setup is not able to use that driver? Is there any way to find out the reason for that?

You can search system logs for any message about your NIC (network interface card):

Code: Select all

su -l -c "journalctl -b --no-pager -g e1000"

Note that existing NIC kernel modules names are "e1000" and "e1000e".

Hope this help. Please let me know.

[su01]

Thanks for replies – I solved the issue, even though I’d still like to know the reason, why the setup behaves totally different than the live system.

Quick summary: When I try to install the Debian 12, network just doesn’t work.
It doesn’t matter whether I try to use DHCP or a static-IP during setup, just doesn’t work.
When I boot any live-image (I tried several) network works perfectly fine, and even if I ignore that not-working-network during installation, network doesn’t work on the fresh install either.
It also wasn’t a driver problem, which is what I initially thought, I found out the setup also uses the Intel e1000 driver …

So anyway, to cut a long story short, for whatever reason, the setup and fresh installation uses the wrong network interface!

/etc/network/interfaces on setup / fresh-installation:
Iface enp2s5 inet dhcp

/etc/network/interfaces on the live-image:
Iface enp0s25 inet dhcp

So when I found that out, it was obviously an easy fix, replacing “enp2s5” with “enp0s25” and the network works!
I’d never expected that!

Do you have any idea, why the live-images uses the correct interface enp0s25, while any installed system (and the setup) uses a (non-existing?) enp2s5 interface?


Thanks so much again

AJ

[Aki]

Hello,

[..] for whatever reason, the setup and fresh installation uses the wrong network interface!
/etc/network/interfaces on setup / fresh-installation:

Code: Select all

iface enp2s5 inet dhcp

/etc/network/interfaces on the live-image:

Code: Select all

Iface enp0s25 inet dhcp

So when I found that out, it was obviously an easy fix, replacing “enp2s5” with “enp0s25” and the network works!
I’d never expected that!
Do you have any idea, why the live-images uses the correct interface enp0s25, while any installed system (and the setup) uses a (non-existing?) enp2s5 interface?

It's quite interesting. May you report the Debian Installer's log ? You can find it here:

• /var/log/installer/syslog

You can do it in one the following ways:

• paste it into the Debian Pastezone service (https://paste.debian.net) and report the URL/link of the paste in a follow-up message

• attaching the log to a follow-up forum message as a compressed zip or gz file

• paste the log into the body of a follow-up message between code tags (if they fit the size of a forum message)

Thanks.