Network Startup Under Debian
When Debian starts up, init runs a script called /etc/init.d/rcS. This script runs all the commands in the /etc/rcS.d/ directory. Among the scripts run are (in order of execution), /etc/init.d/modutils, which loads all modules, and /etc/init.d/networking.
After modutils loads the modules, the NIC should be ready for use by the networking script. Then the networking script runs. This script (linked from /etc/rcS.d/) reads /etc/network/ interfaces to determine how to initialize the NIC. This is similar to Caldera's /etc/sysconfig/ network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file, but with a different syntax.
Debian, unlike Caldera and Red Hat, initializes networking almost immediately on bootup, and doesn't shut down networking until ...
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