2.6 Kernel Sarge i386 iso

i have a ehternet card which i connect to a d-link router which is connected to a earthlink dsl modem

internet was working great up until 2 nights ago when i started to recieve the message i.e. "www.google.com can not be found. please check the name and try again." (you can substitute google with any address i put in)

i use mozilla browser

not sure how to fix this or why it suddenly stopped letting me connect to the internet

i know the internet is still working because i use my other computer on it just fine

thanks

at the root command line i pinged googled

#ping 64.233.167.99 -c 8

8 sent 8 rec 0% packet loss

so i'mn assuming the internet's up and working to this computer

i even typed 64.233.167.99 into the mozzilla address bar and it brought up the google page, but if i click any of the links on the page it doesn't do anything, and if i type www.google.com no luck it doesn't it find it

The problem you are describing is not being able to access your DNS (Domain Name System) servers. You should have a file called /etc/resolv.conf listing the address of your servers. Maybe this has become deleted or screwed up.

But if, as I suspect, you are using DHCP, I would think this should get straightened out when you reboot or restart your network service. If rebooting doesn't straighten out the problem, see if you can find any reference to dhcp in your system log after rebooting or restarting "network." On my system, these entries would be in /var/log/messages, but I am not sure about Debian. Also check your /etc/resolv.conf file.

looked around the logs didn't see anything, so since I didn't have anything on the computer i didn't mind losing i went on and decided to just reload the os,

i ran kill disk on the hard drive to format it first

and then reloaded from the debian cds, everything went great till the update procedure, it couldn't update i got a failure to resolve connection or something message...

i know the the cables good i unpluged it from the computer and plugged it into my other computer to check it out and it worked like a dream, not sure where to begin with this should i maybe be looking at a hardware problemn or a bios problem...

any suggestions?

If it were not what you reported in post #2, I would suspect a hardware problem. But what you reported is exactly what a DNS problem looks like.

At this point (updates aside) do you have a functioning system? If I were in you shoes, if the system was functioning I would try to get some more data from it, or I would boot from a live CD like Damn Small Linux (DSL) and try to get some data that way.

After my first response to you, I checked a DSL system I have to see what kind of reporting it does when it does a DHCP request. If you have enabled system logging (which is off by default on DSL) with the commands syslogd and klogd, it will log details about the DHCP response, including what DNS addresses (if any) are supplied. This sort of info would be useful in diagnosing your problem.

You should also be able to create this same reporting in your Debian system if it is running (minus Internet of course). I am on a public computer right now and don't have access to my Linux stuff, so I might get some details wrong here, but I should be close enough you can figure it out by consulting the man pages.

What you need to do is add a line to your /etc/syslog.conf file something like:

This should cause all info concerning the DHCP transaction to be logged. You then need to restart you network interface (first making sure it is set up for DHCP).

If you want to try Damn Small Linux and have a computer with CD burner and Internet access, it is only a 50 MB download.

If you are not using DHCP then I'd suggest you run base-config again and mannually input your ip, gateway, host mask,and most importantly your name servers at the internet connection settings. Be sure to separate the name servers with spaces only. If base-config isnt installed yet, highly unliky since you are using sarge, then "apt-get install base-config". You did mention that another programme, I suspect synaptic, has failed to connect to the internet so Im thinking its probably gone worng in the base-config.


This is my first ever attempt to help anyone in a forum of any kind. So dont get your hopes up with this advice.