Static IP - Boot Option?

[mark]

I just changed DSL ISPs. The old guys used DHCP, the new ones assign static IP addresses. I powered up my system the other day (when my ISP was doing maintenance) and it took forever to boot. With DHCP, it looked around & when it couldn't find a server, it continued loading. This is with FC1, by the way...

Is there some way to bypass (or work around) the network stuff at boot? My new ISP is nice enough to notify me in advance of any scheduled down time (wish my employer's IT people would!) and I'd like to be able to start my computer to do off-line kinds of things.

Thanks!

[ghenry]

System Settings > Server Settings > Services then untick "network"

[micha]

Change your network config with system-config-network

[mark]

ghenry, micha, thanks - you're absolutely right - if I know in advance of a server outage. However - anybody know of a way to do this "on-the-fly"?

[ghenry]

Could you explain a bit more?

[mark]

Could you explain a bit more?Sure. When my ISP is down, I've seen 2 different responses. With DHCP, when the boot process reaches
Bringing up interface eth0 , it would hesitate for maybe 30 seconds, fail and then proceed with the boot process.

With static IP (my new ISP's scheme), it hits Bringing up interface eth0 and stops. After a L O N G time (subjectively), it fails and resumes booting - until it tries to open the firewall for the NTP servers, where it apparently dies again. Eventually, it goes on to complete the process - but only after (I'd say) 7 minutes, as opposed to 30-40 seconds.

What I want to do is (effectively) say "Okay, my ISP said they should be back up by now - but if they're not, I want you, all the network stuff, to give up gracefully after a reasonable length of time". In other words, can I (either manually or through some configuration change) have my system go ahead and boot in a reasonable amount of time if my server is not available?

Hope that clarifies it, though you may have gotten more than you wanted<g>.