Ethernet card not recognized

Smig · 02-11-2008, 12:41 PM

Hi there.

This is my first post here, I'm rather new to Linux. I've started out through this path a few months ago since I needed a cheap packet level firewall and router so I've successfully configured an iptables script on a Ubuntu distro before I knew much about the very basics of a Linux machine.

My 2nd quest is to substitute our Windows internet DNS server with a Linux based DNS server. I've gotten BIND to work fine with all the domains I need but when I a 2nd ethernet card we'll need, I couldn't get the interface to work. I've tried 3 diferent PCI Ethernet cards in 2 different slots and I can't get more than one eth# interface.

The lspci output successfully detects the 2nd ethernet with all 3 cards but there's no eth1 whatsoever so I guess it shouldn't be a drivers issue, but some other issue in the card association with a the eth# interface (??).

What should I do now? "uname -r" returns 2.6.22-14-server. Am I expected to do something else or is something not working as it should?

EDIT:

After installing 2 different pci ethernet cards on the only 2 pci slots available, these are the ethernet entries of the lspci output:

00.09.0 Ethernet controller: D-Link System Inc RTL8139 Ethernet (rev10)
00.0b.0 Ethernet controller: 3Com Corporation 3c905C-TX-TX-M [Tornado] (rev 78)
00.12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT 6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 74)

ifconfig returns the loopback interface and eth0, which is the on-board ethernet card and the one with which Ubuntu was installed and it is working fine. I've also tried adding an Ovislink but to the same results, it seems it just won't accept any new cards.

farslayer · 02-11-2008, 02:03 PM

I would start by checking the dmesg log..

sudo cat /var/log/dmesg | grep -i eth

see if the other cards are being detected properly on boot.. I'll bet they are.

so now you should just need to edit your /etc/network/interfaces file, and add the other two ethernet interfaces you saw listed in the dmesg log..

Quote:

username@it-etch:~$ cat /etc/network/interfaces
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
# allow-hotplug eth0
# iface eth0 inet dhcp
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.0.4
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway 192.168.0.1
network 192.168.0.0
broadcast 192.168.0.255

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 10.90.90.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 10.90.90.0
broadcast 10.90.90.255

auto eth2
iface eth2 inet static
address 10.10.10.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 10.10.10.0
broadcast 10.10.10.255

after you have made you entries for the other cards try to bring them up..

sudo ifup eth1

sudo ifup eth2

If those cards were in the machine when you did your OS install, the install would have automatically added them to the interfaces file, but since they weren't you will probably have to add them manually.

Smig · 02-11-2008, 02:39 PM

Thanks for helping out.

I thought of that when I had only one extra card and I gave it a shot. Although I didn't use ifup, I've used "/etc/init.d/networking restart" which, I guess, would have the same final result. The output were 3 errors related to eth1 stating it didn't exist.

I might have overlooked something so I'll try that again tomorrow since I'm not at work now.

farslayer · 02-11-2008, 02:40 PM

that's why I said to check the dmesg log first to see if the interfaces were detected by the system and if so what device name was assigned to them..

let us know what you find, and what the exact error messages are..

Smig · 02-12-2008, 07:21 AM

Alright, I have made some advances now.

First of all, I had a misconception about those interfaces, I thought the interfaces file was updated with new entries if new cards were added. Having said that, I did put eth2 online but still no luck with eth1. Here's all the data:

dmesg output:

Code:

8139too Fast Ethernet driver 0.9.28
eth1: Realtek RTL8139 at 0.ce83af00, [physical address], IRQ 11
eth1:  Identified 8139 chiptype 'RTL-8100B/8139D'
eth2: VIA Rhine II at 0x1d400, [physical address], IRQ 5
eth2: MII PHY found at address 1, status 0x7869 advertising 05e1 Link 41c1
eth0: Link up, 100Mbps, Full-duplex, lpa 0x41e1
eth0: no IPv6 routers present

/etc/network/interfaces

Code:

# this have always worked, it's VIA and part of the chipset
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address [public address]
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway [public address]

# this one does not work
auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 192.168.10.50
netmask 255.255.255.0

# this one works
auto eth2
iface eth2 inet static
address 128.0.0.50
netmask 255.255.0.0

ifup eth1 output:

Code:

eth1: ERROR while getting interface flags: no such device
SIOCSIFADDR: No such device
eth1: ERROR while getting interface flags: no such device
SIOCSIFNETMASK: No such device
eth1: ERROR while getting interface flags: no such device
Failed to bring up eth1

ifup eth2 succeeds.

ifconfig shows the configuration of lo, eth0 and eth2.

farslayer · 02-12-2008, 08:20 AM

Looks like it's might be a Ubuntu bug with that particular module.. do you have a different NIC you can use ? or would you rather futz around with recompiling your kernel..

Quote:

Leann Ogasawara wrote on 2008-02-08: (permalink)

Hi Jennifer
Yes this config change will only apply to Ubuntu kernels:
ogasawara:~/ubuntu-hardy/debian/config$ grep -rn "CONFIG_8139TOO_PIO" *
amd64/config:11:CONFIG_8139TOO_PIO=y
hppa/config.hppa32:7:CONFIG_8139TOO_PIO=y
i386/config:7:CONFIG_8139TOO_PIO=y
ia64/config:10:CONFIG_8139TOO_PIO=y
lpia/config:10:CONFIG_8139TOO_PIO=y
powerpc/config:9:CONFIG_8139TOO_PIO=y
sparc/config:8:CONFIG_8139TOO_PIO=y
Also, I think Tim meant to mark this fix released against the Hardy kernel, the 'linux' pakage, not the Gutsy kernel, the linux-source-2.6.22 package. So I'm fixing the Status' accordingly. Thanks.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s....20/+bug/90271

Some other items to try first..

1. open /boot/grub/menu.lst
2. go to the line with the kernel entry and add this: acpi=force pci=noacpi
to address a possible IRQ conflict.

Swapping out the NIC would be an option as well

Smig · 02-12-2008, 12:09 PM

After swapping, the one that was working stopped working... to never work again. Even in the original setup, both started returning that "no such device" error at "ifup". I took both out and tried a 3rd and it's working just as expected as eth1.

I don't know what happened there but I got my dns server up and running now and that was the real priority. I must say that all these NICs I'm using are old leftovers so it's also possible they're having problems on their own but I find it strange that they're correctly detected and identified as seen at dmesg, but they all fail to be set up as actual working interfaces.

Thanks for helping, I will have many more questions now... it's fun to learn Linux