Want to rerun the network probe from install script

rickh · 05-18-2005, 10:02 PM

I've installed Debian (internet install) a few times with no problems. But now I have a laptop that won't boot from the cd. Took it to a computer wizard friend, and he somehow got it to boot from the cd one time. That was enough to overwrite windows. So far, so good.

We didn't have an internet connection available, so I selected 'Configure Network Later' when that option came up. I'd like to run a command or script that does it just like the install program. That never seems to have any problems figuring out gateways, etc.

Running base-config doesn't work. It seems to just 'remember' that I don't have a network, rather than probing for one. Boot output doesn't seem to be looking for eth0. Looked thru syslog in the debian-installer directory, and it seems to suggest that the programs trying to find a network during install were 'discover' and 'netcfg.' But I can't seem to get them to do anything from my system prompt.

Answers welcome.

Dead Parrot · 05-19-2005, 07:18 AM

AFAIK, Debian-Installer uses discover for detecting your netcard and dhcp-client for low-level dhcp configuration. You'll find some documentation for the low-level dhcp configuration under /usr/share/doc/dhcp-client (and some more with the command "man -k dhcp").

On the other hand, you could try a high-level dhcp configuration by editing your /etc/network/interfaces to look like this:

Code:

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# This is a list of hotpluggable network interfaces.
# They will be activated automatically by the hotplug subsystem.
mapping hotplug
        script grep
        map eth0

# The primary network interface
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Then reboot to see if your netcard is detected and net connection successfully set up.

rickh · 05-19-2005, 09:57 AM

The code section to edit the /interface file worked like magic ... Thanks a lot.