For RHEL configurations in which the DHCP lease auto-negotiation process takes more than five seconds, the boot script might fail with the following message:
ethX:failed. No link present. Check cable?
Affected hardware and software:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating systems
Releases 1.0 and later
Workaround:
If this error message appears, even though the presence of a link can be confirmed using ethtool ethX command, try this setting: LINKDELAY=5 in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ethX.
The host might reboot after removing the Physical Function (PF) device driver when the Virtual Function (VF) device driver is active in the guest.
Alternatively, you can use NetworkManager to configure the interfaces, which avoids the set timeout. For configuration instructions for using NetworkManager, refer to the documentation provided with your distribution.