Update to SLES10 SP3 stops at internet connection test

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 3

A machine with 2 network cards is configured for bonding.

When updating the system to SP3 the update stops at the Internet connection test.
The network is no longer active at this point.

There are a few workarounds to prevent that.

In case the update already stopped at that point, switch to a console with Ctrl-Alt-F1 and try to restart the network manually:

/etc/init.d/network restart

In most cases that should bring up the network again and the update can be finished.
Otherwise see below how to fix the issue at this point.

To prevent the hang at all, reconfigure the bonding device before starting the update  and use bus-pci- instead of MAC based slave configuration.

Example:

/etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-bond0

BONDING_MASTER='yes'
BONDING_MODULE_OPTS=''
BONDING_SLAVE0='id-00:14:5e:c2:04:c6'
BONDING_SLAVE1='id-00:14:5e:c2:04:c8'
BOOTPROTO='dhcp'
BROADCAST=''
[...]


check with the command "lspci |grep -i ether"  nics' pci bus addresses:
# lspci |grep -i ether
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5708S Gigabit Ethernet (rev 12)
06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5708S Gigabit Ethernet (rev 12)

or better with "hwinfo --netcard" and then look for "SysFS BusID"

  SysFS BusID: 0000:04:00.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:06:00.0

Replace the BONDING_SLAVE ids:

BONDING_SLAVE0='bus-pci-0000:04:00.0'
BONDING_SLAVE1='bus-pci-0000:06:00.0'


and restart the network with: "/etc/init.d/network restart"
Now update the system.