How To Solve “Device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization” Error

The other day, I encountered with a strange error after I cloned a CentOS 6 guest machine in Oracle VirtualBox. After logging in to the CentOS guest, I noticed that the network card is disappeared. I can't SSH into the CentOS guest anymore.

I checked the IP address using command:

# ifconfig

Sample output:

 lo Link encap:Local Loopback 
 inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
 UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
 RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

As you see in the above output, the eth0 config details is not displayed. It only shows the details of the loopback interface.

I tried to restart the network service to sort out the issue.

# service network restart

Nothing! It simply displayed the following error.

Bringing up interface eth0: Device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization

I thought that there could be any misconfiguration in network configuration file. So, I decided to look into the eth0 configuration file to make sure if everything is correct.

# vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

Sample output:

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=none
DEVICE=eth0
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
HWADDR=08:00:27:DC:33:3F
IPADDR=192.168.1.150
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NM_CONTROLLED=no
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
USERCTL=no

Everything seems OK.

Again, I tried to bring Network card up using command:

# ifup eth0

But, still no luck! It keeps showing the same error message as shown below.

Device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialisation

I added an additional virtual network interface card and configured it. I restarted network service and CentOS guest several times. But, nothing helped. I keep getting the same error over and over.

After a bit searching on web, I found the solution. The MAC address is the problem! After cloning the CentOS VM, the CentOS guest was still using the old machine's MAC address in the Virtual machine settings.

Solve "Device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization" error

If you ever encountered with the same issue, you can fix it as described in the following two methods.

Method 1:

To fix this problem, simply remove the file /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules and reboot your system.

# rm /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules

Now, you will see the network card is up.

Method 2:

If the problem is still not solved, open up the eth0 config file:

# vi /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0

Note down the MAC id (HWADDR).

[...]
HWADDR=08:00:27:DC:33:3F
[...]

Close the file. Then, power off the CentOS guest and go to Settings -> Network -> Adapter 1 -> Advanced from VirtualBox menu bar.

Replace the old MAC id and update it with new one.

After changing the MAC address, Click OK to save it. and power on your guest.

Now, Check if the network card is up using command:

# ifconfig

That's it. It worked!

Reference link:

• https://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7684