How to delay the startup of a system service or mount of remote file system until the network is fully available

Solution Verified - Updated -

Issue

  • A service configured to bind to a specific IP address fails with Cannot assign requested address or similar error message

  • A service configured to bind to a specific IPv6 address fails to start even if it is configured to start after network-online.target

  • A remote file system (e.g. NFS, CIFS) configured to connect to a specific IPv6 address fails to mount automatically at boot

    [...] systemd[1]: remote.mount: Mounting timed out. Terminating.
[...] remote.mount: Mount process exited, code=killed status=15
[...] remote.mount: Failed with result 'timeout'.
[...] systemd[1]: Failed to mount /remote.

  • A remote file system (e.g. NFS, CIFS) configured to connect to a hostname fails to mount automatically at boot

  • The system serving as NFS server fails to export its directories to NFS clients

    [...] exportfs[XXX]: exportfs: Failed to resolve <some nfs client name>

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and later
    • systemd
    • dovecot, httpd, sshd, postfix, ...
    • NFS, CIFS
    • IPv6 but also IPv4 when using name resolution

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