Prevent eth0 on boot

Hi all

I've got a raspberry pi which is running Debian Buster (is it ok to post pi questions here?) and I want to have eth0 down until I call it with ifconfig eth0 up.
Only way I can get it to happen is to have a @reboot line in crontab with ifconfig eth0 down which brings it up during boot then puts it back down which is not ideal.

For the life of me I can not figure this out. Any help appreciated

Thanks

Blacklist the driver ?.

Configure /etc/network/interfaces accordingly ie leave out any reference to eth0

It is possible to bring the interface up but with no IP address configured...

iface eth0 inet manual
      pre-up ifconfig $IFACE up
      post-down ifconfig $IFACE down

Reference:
https://wiki.debian.org/NetworkConfiguration

Originally Posted by themanwhowas I want to have eth0 down until I call it with ifconfig eth0 up.

So to clarify, you want to login to console and bring up the interface after reboot?

If so, do you not have "ONBOOT" option in: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0