Comment 12 for bug 1425376

As for what creates the "Before=network.target" for networking.service (aka /etc/init.d/networking): this is defined in /etc/insserv.conf.

> We should definitely not be blocking network.target indefinitely on boot waiting for the results of /etc/init.d/networking.

Agreed. Conceptually we should keep the Before= so that on shutdown networking.service gets stopped after every service which provides something on the network (and thus can shut down cleanly), but on boot it's fine to asynchronously do the ifup in the background.

However, I cannot actually reproduce this on the current devel-proposed image? I booted with "-net nic,model=virtio -net none" to simulate an unconnected ethernet port, and the only "hanging" job that I get is <email address hidden> (expectedly). network.target and getty are up, but networking.service didn't even run. But it turns out this is due to bug 1440978, I'll address this first.