RE: Ethernet Questions

[sadunn <sadunn@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>]

>===== Original Message From Ray Olszewski <ray@comarre.com> =====
>I added the list back in to this exchange, and I left your message to me
>intact below for that reason.

Thank you. I didn't realize until after I had sent the message that I had 
selected to only reply to you, and not to you plus the list.

>The results of "ifconfig -a" indicate that the interface exists but is not
>configured (that is, does not have an IP address). Assuming you are right in
>your guess that your system uses DHCP (that is certainly something we can't
>tell you), then you need to run some DHCP client on the Mandrake system.
>
>In my prior message, I listed the three common ones (see my item #3 from
>before); you need to check if any of them is on your system and if the
>system is set to use it. See if there is an entry for eth0 in
>/etc/network/interfaces that specifies use of DHCP. (I'm not actually sure
>that Mandrake uses this file, but it is the common way these days to set up
>interfaces, so it probably does.)

I don't have a network folder in /etc.

>If DHCP is running and failing for some reason, there should be output from
>it, either in the dmesg ring buffer (access this with the command "dmesg")
>or in your log files (usually in /var/log, though logging details vary a lot
>between distros).

I got some interesting information from doing this. dmesg gave me only one 
mention of eth0, which went:

eth0: Digital DC21040 Tulip rev 35 at 0x1080, 00:00:C0:1C:0D:C7, IRQ 9

I assume this meant the interface was up, since this is just the information I 
received from ifconfig -a. However, when I checked var/log, I found this, 
repeated in three different places, all during an attempt to startup something 
called inet:

localhost: can't find a dhcpcd client, sbin/pump or sbin/dhcpcd
localhost network: bringing up device eth0 failed

I then went to /sbin, and there was nothing about pump or dhcpcd there. I 
searched around, and can't find them anywhere. I looked to see if during my 
install I didn't install the package(s) they were contained within, but I 
didn't find anything about them there, either.

>Once you have a lease, everything else will probably work.

I hope so! If this ever works I think I should become your vassal or the like 
in gratitude!

>At 11:32 PM 5/3/02 -0500, sadunn wrote:
>>>===== Original Message From Ray Olszewski <ray@comarre.com> =====
>>>You are correct; it does not seem to have received a DHCP lease. I was
>>>misled by your comments in your prior message that "but my "real" IP
>>>returned a -1 result". In context, I understood this to mean that you'd
>>>received a DHCP lease; otherwise, what did your reference to "my "real" IP"
>>>mean?
>>
>>Before I begin, I just want to state that I got so frustrated that I
>>reinstalled Mandrake on my system before I began what was asked of me in 
these
>>prior e-mails. Anyways...
>>
>>By my "real" IP, I was referencing the IP that I received from the winipcfg
>>tool available in Win98. It gave me an IP, host name, 3 DNS addresses, a 
node
>>type, and a DHCP server. I assumed that they would carry over to Linux, but 
I
>>pinged the DNS addresses, and got nothing.
>>
>>>New comments:
>>>
>>>1. It is unlikely that your system lacks the command "ifconfig". Were you
>>>root when you ran the command? If not, please try again as root. (Even
>>>though you are clearly not getting an IP address, this test (by using the 
-a
>>>flag) will tell us if the interface itself exists. If not, you have a
>>>problem at some earlier level we have not yet addressed.
>>
>>I ran the command from root, and it returned eth0 and lo. The eth0 said 
this:
>>Link encap: Ethernet
>>HWaddr 00:00:C0:0D:C7
>>Broadcast Multicast
>>MTN: 1500
>>Metric: 1
>>Rx packets: 0 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 frame: 0
>>Tx packets: 0 errors: 0 dropped: 0 overruns: 0 carrier: 0
>>collisions: 0 txqueuelen: 0
>>Interrupt: 9
>>base address: 0x1080
>>
>>>If you were root, and ifconfig is *really* not on your system, then you 
need
>>>to find out what low-level tool Mandrake provides for accessing interfaces.
>>>The only other one I can think of is "ip", and I believe it does not have a
>>>command to display information about unconfigured interfaces.
>>>
>>>2. Since you are not getting an IP address via DHCP, we need to consider
>>>whether you have a working Ethernet interface at all. If (proprely run)
>>>"ifconfig -a" does NOT show an eth0 device, then please tell us what
>>>Ethernet card you are using, what kernel module(s) you are running to 
access
>>>it, and what the kernel reports during boot/init about it. This last part
>>>will be in the kernel's boot messages, visible via the command "dmesg" and
>>>possibly in a logfile somewhere (try grep'ing for it in /var/log).
>>>
>>>3. If you DO have an eth0 interface, then we need to wonder why it is not
>>>being configured during boot/init. Are you sure your setup uses DHCP (how 
do
>>>you know)? What does the Linux DHCP client -- I don't know which one
>>>Mandrake uses, but the common ones are pump, dhcpcd, and dhclient -- report
>>>during the boot/init sequence (look in the logs)?
>>
>>I'm not sure if my setup uses DHCP, but my windows system used it, and I was
>>unaware what to do in Linux.
>>
>>>I should clarify one thing: while Linux is at its core a unified OS across
>>>all its distributions, these days distros try to differentiate themselves 
at
>>>the User Interface level. As a Debian user, I'm not familiar with the UI
>>>utilities Lothar and DrakConfig, the ones you mention using to set up your
>>>interface. Also, the unspecified "quick network setup wizard" you learned
>>>about in unnamed documentation may not be there because it is specific to
>>>some other distro. Here, I am staying with the low-level setup tools that I
>>>believe still to be standard across all full-size Linux distros.
>>>
>>>
>>>At 12:05 PM 5/2/02 -0500, sadunn wrote:
>>>>===== Original Message From Ray Olszewski <ray@comarre.com> =====
>>>>OK. Networking 101. Your system needs a valid IP address, a routing table
>>>>that includes a route to a working gateway to the Internet, and access to
>>>>DNS servers that can resolve names for you. (It may need other things too,
>>>>but this is the base.) To let us help you figure out what it wrong, report
>>>>the following (from your machine, AFTER it has received its DHCP lease):
>>>
>>>I don't think it has received its DHCP lease, since the netstat -nr command
>>>returned a destination to 127.0.0.0, and none of the other data seems to
>>make
>>>any sense whatsoever.
>>>
>>>>
>>>>        1. The complete, exact output of "ifconfig -a"
>>>
>>>bash: ifconfig: command not found
>>>
>>>>        2. The complete, exact output of  "netstat -nr"
>>>
>>>Kernel IP routing table
>>>Destination  Gateway   Genmask    Flags   Mss  Window   irtt   Iface
>>>127.0.0.0    0.0.0.0   255.0.0.0    u      0    0         0      lo
>>>
>>>>        3. Try to ping the IP address reported in step 1.
>>>>                Tell us either that the ping works or EXACTLY
>>>>                how it fails ("-1" isn't enough; we need to see
>>>>                the text that precedes the -1).
>>>
>>>I didn't get an address to ping because the command failed.
>>>
>>>>        4. Try to ping the gateway address reported in step 2 --
>>>>                the routing table (assuming there is one).
>>>
>>>I didn't think 0.0.0.0 was a vaild address to ping, so I didn't. Perhaps I
>>am
>>>mistaken?
>>>
>>>>        5. The contents of the file /etc/resolv.conf .
>>>
>>>search localdomain
>>>
>>>>        6. The results of pinging the first address listed in
>>>>                /etc/resolv.conf .
>>>
>>>I had no address to ping
>>>
>>>>You may also have a hardware problem. I don't want to take the time to
>>write
>>>>out those tests right now; if the results of this first set suggest a
>>>>hardware problem, I'll return to it. Oh, one more thing ...
>>>>
>>>>        7. The output of "uname -a"
>>>
>>>Linux localhost 2.2.14-15mdk #1 Tue Jan 4 22:24:20 CET 2000 i686 unknown
>>>
>>>[old stuff deleted]
>>>
>>>
>>>--
>>>------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
>>>Ray Olszewski                                        -- Han Solo
>>>Palo Alto, CA           	 	         ray@comarre.com
>>>----------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>
>--
>------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
>Ray Olszewski                                        -- Han Solo
>Palo Alto, CA           	 	         ray@comarre.com
>----------------------------------------------------------------


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