Hello, I'm pretty new in linux and after trying several distro's: FC1,FC2,mandrake 10.1 and SUSE 9.1 I now arrived at Debian woody.

I've read the aboutdebian install guide and followed most of the instructions. But I can't get my networkcard connected.

I've got an 3comEtherlink III(3c509B-tpo) NIC.

When I do ifconfig I've got an eth0 interface with an static IP attached to it. Since my home router is DHCP this isn't the way it should be.

if tried 'ifconfig dhcp eth0', but this didn't work.

But first of all I would just like to know if my NIC is up and running. In windows you can check this by the red cross over the networkconnnection. I simply don't know how to check if my NIC is recieving signals or not.

So my questions are:

1)how to check if my NIC is recieving signals
2)what are the commandline instructions for setting up DHCP(or a good link )

Can somebody give me some answers (or links) please

thanks

To set up your eth0 interface for dhcp edit /etc/network/interfaces as follows:

#The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Either comment out the existing static ip address info or delete it. You will have to do this as root. Once you have the interfaces file edited just run the following command as root in a termnial: /etc/init.d/networking restart. This will cause the networking daemon to restart and the dhcp client to search for a dhcp server.

To check if eth0 and tcp/ip are installed correctly I would just ping 127.0.0.1.

Hello, sorry for my late response. I haven't been able to spend to much time on my linux machine last days(tomorrow and the day after tomorrow are linuxdays though )

However I did try pinging 127.0.0.1.

This worked. But I don't think this means that my NIC is recieving signals.

I seem to have two NIC

eth0 and an loopback NIC. When I ping 127.0.0.1. It is just the virtual loopback NIC that's responding. I don't think it has anything to do with recieving signals on eth0.

Does anybody know how to check if my NIC is recieving signals or not? (the red cross over an networkconnection in Windows, when you pull the cable out)

Thanks

What you are seeing isn't two different nics. The loopback address exists on all nics, and the ifconfig command will show etho, lo, and if you have a 2.6 kernel an IPv6 address also which if I remember correctly is shown as "sit", or something similar to that. (I'm not logged onto a machine running the 2.6 kernel right now so I'm depending upon my memory for that one.)

You didn't say whether or not you edited your /etc/network/interfaces file to reflect what I posted or not. You need to edit the that file so that it no longer says that eth0 is a static but is dhcp.

I don't know exactly how much Linux experience you do have, but I have found that editing the configuration files such as /etc/network/interfaces is many times the easiest way to do things. I'm no Linux guru but I regularly edit files such as that one and it works very well. I find it easier than memorizing all the CLI commands and switches.

Hello, thanks for your replies. I've been trying to setup my NIC according to your guidelines, but no success until now. Here is some output from my Debian machine. Maybe this gives a clue.

I think I'm going to install windows on the machine just to test if my NIC is working at all. Then I will reinstall Debian.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
my /etc/network/interfaces file
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# /etc/network/interfaces -- configuration file for ifup(8), ifdown(8)

# The loopback interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The first network card - this entry was created during the Debian installation
# (network, broadcast and gateway are optional)
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ifconfig output
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:50:04:04:99:00
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:64 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:1
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:21888 (21.3 KiB)
Interrupt:10 Base address:0x300

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:3924 Metric:1
RX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:14 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1064 (1.0 KiB) TX bytes:1064 (1.0 KiB)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
pinging to 127.0.0.1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PING 127.0.0.1 (127.0.0.1): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=255 time=0.2 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=0.0 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=0.0 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=0.0 ms
64 bytes from 127.0.0.1: icmp_seq=4 ttl=255 time=0.0 ms

--- 127.0.0.1 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max = 0.0/0.0/0.2 ms


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
pinging to 192.168.2.1 (which is definitly there, its the adress of my home router, pingen from
other windows PC's on my network works perfectly)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PING 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1): 56 data bytes
ping: sento: Network is unreachable
ping: wrote 192.168.2.1 64 chars, ret=-1
ping: sento: Network is unreachable
ping: wrote 192.168.2.1 64 chars, ret=-1
ping: sento: Network is unreachable
ping: wrote 192.168.2.1 64 chars, ret=-1
ping: sento: Network is unreachable
ping: wrote 192.168.2.1 64 chars, ret=-1

--- 192.168.2.1 ping statistics ---
7 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100% packet loss

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
part of my home-router config
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAN Settings
IP address
192.168.2.1
Subnet mask
255.255.255.0
DHCP Server
Enabled

Often used method to test net connection is "ping www.google.com".

Perhaps you'll find useful what rute http://www.icon.co.za/~psheer/book/ says about configuring network connections. Especially see chapters 25.7.2, 25.10.1, and 27.3.

In addition to editing your /etc/network/interfaces you should check that you've got /etc/resolv.conf that looks something like this (do not copy this, it's just the general format):

search your.domain.name
nameserver xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

What happens if you define a static ip in /etc/network/interfaces ???

This is my configuaration of /etc/network/interfaces for my LAN:

Adjust it to your LAN settings and see what happens. If it works, your NIC works (modules are loaded, etc) and you know that it has something to do with your client DHCP settings and not your NIC.

Good luck.

Once you made the changes in the /etc/network/interfaces file did you restart your networking daemon as I said in my initial post? If you don't your card won't see the changes. You restart your networking daemon by the following command: "/etc/init.d/networking restart" minus the quotes of course.

Hello, thanks again for the replies

I've installed windows XP on my machine and the NIC was up an running and able to surf in notime. So there is no hardware problem with the NIC

It did try to reload with "/etc/init.d/networking restart", and also restarted my PC.

pinging www. google. com will not work if I can't ping 192.168.2.1 ==>pinging google is more complex because it also implies that my DNS config is up and running. 192.168.2.1 is my home router. If I can't ping my router, google won't work either. Although I will give it a try.

I've tried using a static IP config before I reinstalled windows, no succes there.

After testing my NIC in Windows I reinstalled Debian:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the reason of my problem is that my NIC isn't installed properly in Debian. During the install I've loaded the driver, and then I get the option to configure network. At that point I choose to configure using DHCP. Then I get an errormessage saying that Debian isn't able to configure using DHCP.

I restarted my PC during the install en restarted installing Debian again. Now I didn't choose a driver. Then I din't have an eth0 card when I did ifconfig. Althoug pinging 127.0.0.1 stills worked.

I think I just have to properly install my NIC in Debian.

On my tird install attempt I've tried all 3c drivers, only one didn't fail on installing the driver: 3c509 ==> which is the one I used before. But then I tried to use 'automatic network configuration using DHCP/BOOTP' But this failed.(this is bassicly what I've done before, except that I didn't test all the drivers)

Seems like the driver get's installed but doens't really work.

I'm starting to run out of options here, all suggestions are appriciated.

(I won't be able to reply during the weekend, but I will definitly reply on thuesday)

Thanks

PS) sorry for typing errors, I've got to go to work urgently

Hmmm.... After doing a bit of research into your card--3C509-TPO--I find that this may very well be an ISA card. Is that correct? If so it seems the setup for that card is rather complicated. It looks like, according to what I've read on a couple of sites, that you may have to compile that driver from source for each machine and then give it the IRQ, I/O info, etc... as option when you compile the driver. Then it looks like you have to tell LILO that it is there.

Here is a link to a page that lists your card and the steps to take in compiling the source code into a driver and the settings to use. I'm not sure if this works under Debian or not, but I don't see why it shouldn't.

Maybe someone else here with more experience than I have can say if it will or not. If not I would suggest using the Debian user mailing list. I have gotten some good answers to tough questions there. You can subscribe at the Debian site.

I'll put this link here just in case you don't find on the Scyld site. It gives more info on setting up your card.

Hello,

Well, my 3com etherlink III card indeed is an ISA card. Normally this card schouldn't be a problem to install. if you surf to http://www.aboutdebian.com/install3.htm and do an ctrl-f search for "safest bet", it is hard to believe that this card should pose any problems. But maybe the authors(or me) overlooked a small detail.

But I still had an other NIC lying in my drawer(an D-link DE-528 NIC). According to http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Ethernet-HOWTO-4.html I should have used the 'ne' driver, but this driver didn't wan't to install. So I tried to configure my network using DHCP without driver: DHCP connection configured succesfull. So it works now,I can ping www.google.com, etc.

I really haven't go a clue why my first NIC(3com) doesn't work, and why my second NIC(D-link) works whitout a driver. It doesn't make much sense to me.

I've anyone has some clear instructions how to figure this out, I will be happy to follow them, otherwise I will just continue with this working configuration and catogorize this as "Weird Debian Behavior". Which i didn't really expect from a stable Linux distribution. Although, as always, it's propably just me overlooking or not knowing a small Detail

Anyway, thanks for your help

bye

I'm glad you got your computer going.

I would think that there is a difference between a 3C-509-TPO and a 3C-509B card. Why the difference in model numbers if they are identical? I don't think that the two would necessarily install the same way or even have the same driver, especially in Linux as they were designed to run on Windows boxes. Also, if you read the info at the link provided for hardware compatibility you will see that even the 509B is a major pain to install. You have to disable plug-n-play with a DOS utility, select your media type, and flash that to EEPROM. On the older card, which is what you most likely have, you it is a major pain to install having to play with unmasking interrupts, playing with the buffer settings, and more. That's basically what was said to do, plus compiling the driver yourself, on the links I gave you. That card just looks to be one that is a major pain to work with.

As to why your other Nic would run without you having to load a module.... The driver is probably compiled into the kernel. That would also explain why you couldn't load the module. However, that is only a guess at best.

( I know , old thread , posted for future searches)

I have an isa ehternet III card , working with the 509b driver..
Just load it on setup (cdrom) dhcp the netwerk and it worked

I do notice however , that his card seemed to be installed, just no ip adress on it.. (read the posted ifconfig output) i would think that would indicate a bad cable? (doesn't explain why it worked with another card tho)