I don't think it would be a problem to modify the script as I've done. But, I'm not a linux guru..may be this modification could induce some other problems.. The fact is that I checked the /etc/init.d/networking of another debian system (agnula) wich I run too..and it is the SAME file ! So, it is not buggous, because with agnula I don't have this network problem. The problem is coming from somewhere else..but the modification I've made in the script just works for me.. If somebody could evaluate the consequences... I don't know if you saw the modified script. Here it is again : For info, the solution I adopted for now is modifying the /etc/init.d/networking script as so (i just give the changes in comments) : case "$1" in start) process_options log_action_begin_msg "Configuring network interfaces" ###### JULIEN'S ADD (ifdown -a) ##### ifdown -a if ifup -a; then log_action_end_msg $? else log_action_end_msg $? fi ;; stop) if sed -n 's/^[^ ]* \([^ ]*\) \([^ ]*\) .*$/\2/p' /proc/mounts | grep -qE '^(nfs[1234]?|smbfs|ncp|ncpfs|coda|cifs)$'; then log_warning_msg "not deconfiguring network interfaces: network shares still mounted." exit 0 fi log_action_begin_msg "Deconfiguring network interfaces" ##### JULIEN'S REMOVE --exclude=lo ##### # if ifdown -a --exclude=lo; then if ifdown -a; then log_action_end_msg $? else log_action_end_msg $? fi ;; force-reload|restart) process_options log_action_begin_msg "Reconfiguring network interfaces" #### JULIEN'S REMOVE --exclude=lo #### # ifdown -a --exclude=lo || true ifdown -a || true if ifup -a --exclude=lo; then log_action_end_msg $? else log_action_end_msg $? fi ;; Ciao.